Kazakhstan's parliament voted on Thursday to trim spending and widen the fiscal gap of the 2013 state budget after lower prices for Kazakh metals and other mining exports dented revenues.
The Senate upper chamber of the legislature approved revised revenues of 5.228 trillion tenge ($34.5 billion), cutting the originally set income by 206.7 billion tenge ($1.37 billion).
Lower budget revenues are due mainly to smaller corporate income taxes, hit by lower world prices for Kazakh metals and other raw material exports, the Finance Ministry said.
The government plans to partially offset losses in revenues by higher oil export duties. These duties were hiked to $60 per ton from $40 per ton in April.
Outgoings were cut by 121.3 billion tenge to 6.009 trillion tenge "by optimizing spending," the Finance Ministry said in the draft budget law put to vote. It gave no details.
(Reuters)
