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Ukraine’s parliament resumes session to adopt budget for 2016

The necessary amount to adopt the budget is 226 votes

© Maxim Nikitin/TASS

KIEV, December 25. /TASS/. Ukraine’s parliament, the Verkhovna Rada, has resumed the evening session to adopt the state budget for the next year.

Parliament Speaker Vladimir Groysman said 302 MPs are present in the session hall. The deputies earlier decided to work "until the agenda of the day was fulfilled and to complete the work on adopting the budget."

The necessary amount to adopt the budget is 226 votes. Meanwhile, several factions in the parliament have already announced that they would not vote in favor of the budget.

Ukraine’s state budget for 2016 is based on a new draft Tax Code, as recommended by the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Both documents were presented in the parliament on December 17 and both came under criticism from nearly all parliamentary factions. As a result, the documents were referred back to the Rada’s tax and customs policy committee.

After a series of failed presentations of the budget and the Tax Code, the International Monetary Fund urged Ukraine to pass the budget in conformity with its recommendation otherwise it warned it would suspend the program of international financial assistance.

On Thursday, the MPs resumed the consideration of the changes to the Tax Code. The draft tax reform is considered as compromise as it is based on the government’s proposal and takes into account the recommendations of the parliamentary committee for tax and customs policy.

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