Finance ministry: number of applications for subsidies could grow by 27% in 2016

Ukraine's Finance Ministry anticipates that the number of applications for subsidies will grow by 27% in 2016, to 7 million, Finance Minister Oleksandr Danyliuk has said.

"Last year we had 5.5 million families who received subsidies, and this year we could have 7 million households. This is the half of the Ukrainian population. This is a large challenge," he said at the Ukrainian Energy Efficiency Forum in Kyiv on Thursday.

Danyliuk said that in 2017 expenditure on financing subsidies could grow to UAH 70-80 billion from UAH 35 billion provided in the 2015 national budget.

"Of course, the sum is not final. It depends on the number of applications for subsidies and the revision of the subsidy formula. It would be critical for the budget anyway," he said.

This year the national budget has UAH 60 billion for financing subsidies, but the sum could be larger, he said.