The Budget proposal for the year 2019 is slated to be presented to the parliament, tomorrow (05), during the parliamentary session, by Minister of Finance Mangala Samaraweera.

On the 05th of February, the Leader of the House Minister Lakshman Kiriella presented the Appropriation Bill for the year 2019 to the Parliament.

The expected state revenue for the year 2019 is estimated to be at Rs 2390 billion while the expected state expenditure is Rs 4550 billion.

Accordingly, the budget deficit for the year 2019 would be Rs 2160 billion.

From the total Rs 4450 billion of state expenditure, an amount of Rs 2232 billion is allocated for debt servicing.

Accordingly, in the year 2019, 50.15% of state expenditure is spent on domestic and foreign loans.

Although the budget is usually presented to the parliament in November, it was postponed until tomorrow due to the political climate in the country last year. As a result, a vote on account was also passed in the Parliament for the first three months of the year until the budget was presented to Parliament.

The Budget Proposal for the year 2019 was finalized by Finance Minister Mangala Samaraweera and Treasury Secretary Dr. R.H.S. Samaratunga at the Minister’s  “private residence at Gorakana- Panadura yesterday (03).