Fiscal reforms to be sent to Sejm soon - Kolodko

Speaking on Polish radio yesterday morning, Finance Minister Kolodko said the government would soon send a package of fiscal reform bills to parliament, in the hope they would be tackled in the first half of the year. He said he was counting on the support of pro-reform groups in the Sejm, where the Democratic Left Alliance/Labor Union (SLD/UP) government is now 19 seats short of a majority. Kolodko indicated last week that the reforms would be submitted to the cabinet by mid-March. Kolodko's planned reforms rely on optimistic growth assumptions, with growth targets raised from 3.5% in 2003 to 4.9% in 2004 and 5.4% in 2005 to meet the Maastricht criteria in 2006. While the details sketched out last week avoid significant spending cuts and tax increases, the risk is that necessary cuts to social benefits and spending by state agencies will be unpalatable to populist opposition parties while falling short of reforms the centre-right would like to see. Plans to access up to $3 billion of the Central Bank's forex revaluation provision are also controversial. (Reuters) A.Z.