According to the proposal, the Macro – Public Finance Framework for preparation of budget 2018 aims to achieve several targets in 2020 including increasing the public income up to 16.5% of GDP, recurrent expenditure to be 14.8% of the GDP, public investment to be 5.3% of GDP, reducing budget deficit to 3.5% of GDP, and reducing public debt to 70% of GDP.

Accordingly, the proposal made by Minister Samaraweera to prepare budget 2018 on Performance based budgeting according to midterm budget framework 2018-2020 and to determine budget limits for line ministries considering priority programmes of the government, was approved by the Cabinet of Ministers this week.