New Tax Code signed into law

On Friday, President Yanukovych signed the new Tax Code, which was approved by the Ukrainian parliament on Thursday, into law. This opens the way for the government to submit the 2011 budget to Parliament based on the new tax legislation. We expect this to happen in the next week or two, and anticipate that the budget will be approved quickly.  We see the approval of a reasonable 2011 budget with a deficit within 3.5%-4% of GDP as one of the prerequisites for disbursement of the next USD 1.5 bln IMF tranche by the end of this year.