Ukraine’s Eight-Month State Budget Deficit Widens, Ministry Says

Ukraine’s state budget deficit jumped threefold from a year earlier in the first eight months as spending rose 14.5 percent, the Finance Ministry said.

The shortfall was 16.66 billion hryvnia ($2.1 billion), compared with 5.18 billion hryvnia in the same period of 2011, the ministry, based in the capital, Kiev, said today in a statement on its website.

Ukraine raised 5.23 billion hryvnia from January to August by selling state assets, according to the statement.

To contact the reporter on this story: Daryna Krasnolutska in Kiev at dkrasnolutsk@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Balazs Penz at bpenz@bloomberg.net;