Skopje, 26 April 2022 (MIA) — The national budget will be revised after May 3, when International Monetary Fund representatives complete their visit to the country, according to Prime Minister Dimitar Kovachevski. “The IMF visit is one of their standard visits,” Prime Minister Kovachevski said. “It begins this week and ends on May 3. After that, the budget rebalance will be finalized and submitted to the Members of Parliament to consider, debate on, and adopt at a plenary session.” On financing the budget deficit, PM Kovachevski said the state would use an IMF instrument because the price of Eurobonds was higher. The budget deficit, he said, was due to the economic crisis resulting from the war in Ukraine and rising energy prices, which had necessitated governmental measures worth around EUR 400 million. “To protect the living standard of the citizens, we increased pensions through the introduction of a new methodology and we increased the minimum wage because minimum wage workers at the time could not cover basic living costs,” he said. The PM added that the Minister of Finance would soon announce the exact amount the state would need to borrow. He also said the central bank governor and Ministry of Finance officials had recently visited the IMF and discussed using an IMF instrument previously used in 2011. “Based on the approval of that instrument, we will also discuss macro-financial support with the European Commission. We have already provided 100 million euros from the EBRD to finance electricity supply by the end of the year,” he said. According to Kovachevski, the country had higher revenues than expected for 2022. He said the IMF had a positive assessment of North Macedonia’s economy, based on the country's monetary policy, fiscal policy and general economic performances. “This is what the IMF financing instrument approval is based on,” Kovachevski said. “The instrument approval qualifies the country for applying for macro-financial help from the EC.” “This is important because there are different sources to finance budget deficits,” he said, adding that the EBRD loan of EUR 100 million for maintaining the country’s power supply had an interest rate of about 1 percent. mr/