By Kalata News
Government to spend K217 Billion in 2025
Lusaka, October – ON September 27, 2024, Minister of Finance and National Planning, Situmbeko Musokotwane presented before parliament a 217.1 billion Kwacha budget for the year 2025.
The budget represents 27 percent of Zambia’s Gross Domestic product (GDP).
Out of this amount, K174.2 billion or 80.2 percent of the Budget will be funded from domestic revenues (taxes and others) while K8.2 billion or 3.8 percent will be grants from our Cooperating Partners.
According to the budget speech by the Finance Minister, Government has set the following macroeconomic objectives for 2025:
- Attain a real GDP growth rate of 6.6 percent
- Reduce inflation to the 6-8 percent target band in the medium-term
- Maintain international reserves above 3.0 months of import cover
- Increase domestic revenue to at least 21.3 percent of GDP
- Reduce the fiscal deficit to 3.1 percent of GDP; and
- Limit net domestic borrowing to 1.9 percent of GDP.
Of the budget, Government proposes to spend by order of amounts (largest to smallest) on the following:
- 34 percent on General Services,
- 22 percent on Economic Affairs,
- 15 percent on Education,
- 10 percent on Health and
- 7 percent on Social Protection
Out of this amount, K174.2 billion or 80.2 percent of the Budget will be financed by domestic revenues while K8.2 billion or 3.8 percent will be grants from our Cooperating Partners.
The balance of K34.7 billion or 16.0 percent will be financed through borrowing. Domestic borrowing will be K15.4 billion or 7.1 percent while K19.4 billion or 8.9 percent will come from external sources. As a share of GDP, domestic borrowing is projected at 1.9 percent while external borrowing is 2.4 percent.
To stimulate the economy, Government proposes to spend K48.7 billion or 22.4 percent of the Budget on economic activity and improve livelihoods. Of this amount, K12.0 billion is for construction, upgrade and rehabilitation of roads.
Government has allocated K15.4 billion to support interventions in the agriculture, fisheries and livestock sub sectors. Of this amount, K9.3 billion is for the Farmer Input Support Programme to benefit over 1 million farmers. To ensure food security, Government proposes to increase the allocation for strategic food reserves to K2.4 billion from K1.7 billion in 2024.
The Finance Minister noted that Zambia’s economy performs according to the performance of the Mining sector and has proposed to increase the copper production, establish gold markets and map up the presence of Zambia’s mineral resources.
