The Lao government will upwardly adjust the salaries of state officials to a 500 kip per index next fiscal year due to its understanding that the salary of government officials is insufficient when considering the continuously increasing cost of living.
The current salary level is 6,700 kip per index.
Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance Mr Somdy Douangdy proposed the plan at the 2nd Ordinary Session of the National Assembly’s 8th Legislature on Oct 24.
Over the past 10 months, the Ministry of Finance has earned revenue totalling 15.7 trillion kip accounting for 66.55 per cent of the plan, of which domestic income was 14 trillion kip, or 66.11 per cent of the set plan. At the same time, expenditures totalled 24.2 trillion kip or 78.06 per cent of the set plan.
“National debt from 2014-2015 was 4.6 trillion kip borrowed from friendly countries, of which 1.37 trillion kip were domestic loans and exceeded the plan by 125 billion kip,” he said.
The result of implementation plan in the fiscal year of 2015-2016 still face a number of challenges and constraints, but the government made efforts to limit expenditures of state budget by issuing many control measures. These included improving the structure and management of the budgetary systems, the management of expenditures, and other savings measures.
The said measures have yielded positive results and the collection of state revenue in the fiscal year of 2015-2016 is expected to be about 94.56 per cent of the set plan.
In 2017, the implementation of the state budget plan will start in January 2017 and will be implemented based on the calendar year.
The expected plan for the collection of state revenue is to reach 23.8 trillion kip, of which 21.3 trillion kip will be derived from domestic income and the plan for expenditures is set to not exceed 32.2 trillion kip.
Source: KPL
