Ambitious national budget passed by Parliament

The Lithuanian Parliament passed an ambitious national budget for 2003 after two hours of debates Dec. 10, with significant expenditure increases on defense and administrative capabilities.

The law was passed by a vote of 72 to 43, with five abstentions. The Parliament rejected, by a majority of votes, most of the requests for a further increase in budgetary allocations for one or another sector.

National budget revenues were expected to reach 11.1 billion litas (3.21 billion euros) in 2003, a 6.8 percent increase over the 2002 estimate, while expenditures are planned at 12.4 billion litas, up by 7.7 percent.

The national budget includes the central government and municipal budgets.

The 2003 central government budget projects revenues of 9.5 billion litas and expenditures of 10.8 billion litas.

The budget was planned with a deficit of 1.3 billion litas, which represents 2.4 percent of the projected GDP.

The 2003 budget allocated a considerable amount of funds for enhancing Lithuania's administrative capabilities as part of the country's preparation to join the European Union.

Financing for EU and NATO integration programs was planned to increase by 262 million litas next year.

In 2003, the total national defense spending is planned at 1 billion litas, which accounts for 2 percent of GDP. Defense allocations from the central government budget alone should reach nearly 950 million litas, 95 million litas more than this year.

Total allocations for agriculture are raised by 188 million litas to 925.9 million litas, of which 684.3 million litas should come from the central government budget.