On November 21, a meeting of the Legislative Chamber of Oliy Majlis took place, at which deputies considered and adopted the draft law “On the State Budget of the Republic of Uzbekistan for 2020” in the second reading.

For the first time in the history of Uzbekistan, the state budget is adopted in the form of a law. 

Before the bill was introduced for the second reading, more than 100 proposals were made in the course of discussion at committees, fractions, working groups and chamber meetings. Of these, 60 are fundamental proposals.

In particular, initiators of the draft law proposed to transfer income tax levied on legal entities to the republican budget. Taking into account the opinion of deputies that this could reduce the interest of local khokimiyats when creating business entities, it was decided to leave 50% of corporate income tax levied to local budgets.

In addition, in the draft law, the concept of “parliamentary appropriations” is replaced by the concept of “funds allocated from the republican budget”.

A norm has been introduced into the bill allowing the Legislative Chamber to use the approved part of the republican budget, State Trust Funds, and the Fund for Reconstruction and Development of Uzbekistan, not exceeding 3% of total expenses.

Deputies proposed to provide the regions with the authority to keep temporarily free funds of local budgets on deposits in commercial banks, which will increase the volume of local budgets. 

A decision was made on the need for a detailed review of the mechanism for implementing this proposal, its development, and also an opinion was expressed on streamlining this process by adopting a separate legal act. In addition, it is planned to place temporarily free funds on deposits on the basis of an agreement between the Ministry of Finance and local khokimiyats, the interest received on income will be directed to local budgets.

The Ministry of Finance was invited to provide an order to streamline off-budgetary revenues and expenses of ministries and departments by April 1, 2020, in accordance with presidential draft resolution on ensuring the implementation of the State Budget for 2020.

In addition, it is proposed to include a reduction clause for higher education institutions that are switching to a self-financing system, the rate of a single social payment from 25% to 12% in the draft presidential resolution on ensuring implementation of the State Budget for 2020.

Taking into account the fact that in the following years the number of students will gradually increase. Based on the proposals of deputies, in 2020, funds will be allocated for 500 additional quotas for admission to doctoral and postgraduate studies.