Yatsenyuk: Naftogaz Deficit 1.5 Times More Than Ukraine's National Deficit

The Ukrainian state budget today is $4.4 billion, while the deficit of Naftogaz is $6.7 billion, Ukrainian Prime Minister Yatsenyuk said during a government session.

KIEV, December 3 (Sputnik) – Ukraine’s Naftogaz national gas corporation’s budget deficit is one and a half times larger than Ukraine’s overall budget deficit, Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk said Wednesday.

“I’m worried more about Naftogaz’s deficit, which is larger than the overall deficit of [Ukraine’s] national budget. The state budget today is 68 billion hryvnas ($4.4 billion), and the deficit of Naftogaz, which we financed because the tariffs didn’t correspond with the market price for gas, is 103 billion hryvnas ($6.7 billion),” Yatsenyuk said during a government session.

Ukraine's President Petro Poroshenko said earlier that Naftogaz's deficit could be covered by funds provided by the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

The IMF, in a report published in September mentioned that Ukraine planned to overcome Naftogaz’s deficit by 2018, making sure the debt was no more than 4.3 percent of GDP in 2014 and 1.9 percent in 2015. However, according to IMF calculations, the company's deficit will still amount to 10 percent GDP by the end of 2014.

Naftogaz is Ukraine’s main oil and gas company that produces more than 90 percent of the country’s oil and gas and provides one tenth of state revenues.