Marina Solovieva
The report of the Ministry of Finance on the execution of the national public budget as of February 28, 2025 shows that compared to the same period of 2024, revenues increased by 13.3%. At the same time, the revenues administered by the State Tax Service are 16.4% higher than last year, while the Customs Service – by 8.7%. Other revenues increased by half (50.2%), while revenues from projects financed from external sources, on the contrary, decreased by half (50.6%).
State budget expenditures and non-financial assets amounted to 13,305.4 million lei. Compared to the same period of 2024, they are higher by 9.4% (1,139.3 million lei). Personnel expenses, transfers and subventions increased.
The state budget execution at the end of February 2025 ended with a deficit of 3,079.2 million lei. It was financed from internal sources in the amount of 3,367.1 million lei, as well as from external sources (- 251.7 million lei) and changes in the cash balance (- 36.2 million lei).
“Until the end of the year, there is still 63.1 billion lei to reach the planned annual revenues of 73.3 billion lei,” commented Marina Solovieva, program director at Expert grup. – If the state budget revenues were distributed evenly by months, we should expect 12.2 billion lei in January-February. However, in Moldova the budget filling is influenced by the seasonality factor. In winter, foreign and domestic trade, construction, tourism and catering services, etc. traditionally slow down. This affects tax revenues. But if we compare the state budget revenues in January-February 2025 with the revenues for the corresponding period last year, we can say that things are going well. Revenues as a whole grew by 13.3% (including tax revenues by 13.0%), while annual inflation (February 2025 to February 2024) amounted to 8.6%. That is, the growth of state budget revenues outpaces price growth. Also, the growth rate of revenues exceeds the growth rate of expenditures from the state budget (12.3% compared to January-February 2024)”.
According to the expert, revenues could have been higher if the government had taken a number of measures. For example, reducing tax exemptions. “According to the latest memorandum with the IMF, by September this year, it pledged to approve a draft law on expanding the tax base and revising preferential tax regimes, starting from January 2026, in order to generate at least 900 million lei in additional annual revenues compared to the current policy,” Marina Solovieva notes.
