The Parliamentary Committee for Economy and Finance approved in principle the draft budget and fiscal package for 2023. According to the government, the budget revenues next year are expected to reach Lek 631.7 billion, while expenses will be Lek 687.2 billion.

It is planned that in 2023 the economic growth will be 2.6%, from the 3.7% expected this year. Public Investments for 2023 are planned at the rate of 5.6% of GDP or Lek 122.24 billion, including the reconstruction fund in the amount of Lek 5 billion.

Planned expenditures aim at support for digitization and cyber security, finalization of national road projects, national security, support of the water sector, health, education and the agriculture and rural development sector.

Referring to the forecasts of economic growth, as well as the planned budget deficit for 2023, the level of public debt in relation to GDP is expected to decrease by about 1.3% compared to the end of 2022.

Meanwhile, next year the government will continue with the policy of increasing wages and indexation of pensions, as a measure to ease the burden of families from high inflation.

Likewise, the subsidy for energy sector management companies will continue, with about Lek 12 billion to keep the price of electricity unchanged for family consumers and small businesses.

Meanwhile, the Fiscal Package 2023, according to the Ministry of Finance and Economy, aims to increase the good administration of revenues and align the tax legislation with the directives of the European Union, as well as reflect some corrections in the current laws, according to the recommendations of the International Monetary Fund and discussions with the groups of interest.

The changes in the law "On tax procedures" propose the tightening of measures for cases where non-declaration of employees, concealment of salaries or even non-declaration of social security contributions is evidenced.

On the other hand, it has been proposed to toughen the penalties for cases of non-accompaniment of invoiced goods, but this only for cases of large business.

In the law "On Excise Duty" it is proposed to unify the excise duty on beer, for local and foreign producers, regardless of the amount of production.

Also, the VAT exemption of projects for IPA funds has been proposed, the VAT exemption of energy will be handled through the energy exchange, which will start functioning very soon, within this year. The fiscal package has a general effect on budget revenues of about Lek 16.6 billion.