The Budget proposal for the year 2019 is scheduled to be presented to the parliament by Minister of Finance Mangala Samaraweera during today’s (05) parliament session.
This is the fifth budget proposal presented by the incumbent government and its focal points are said to entail empowering the people and nurturing the poor.
Prior to being presented to the parliament session, the Budget proposal is slated to be presented at the Cabinet meeting this morning (05).
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, according to the Ministry of Finance.
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.
The Second Reading of the Budget will commence at 2.00 p.m. today and the debate is slated to continue for 6 days until March 12th.
The Third Reading of the Appropriation Bill or the Committee Stage Debate will be held on March 13th and continue until April 5th.
