(Adds details and quotes)
WARSAW, May 14 (Reuters) - The Polish government will
increase monthly child benefit payments to 800 zlotys ($193.13)
per child from 500 zlotys from the start of 2024, the leader of
the ruling Law and Justice Party, Jaroslaw Kaczynski, said on
Sunday.
The family support program called "Family 500 plus" is a
flagship project of the Law and Justice party (PiS), which was
introduced in 2016.
"... from the new year, 500 plus will be 800 plus,"
Kaczynski told a convention before parliamentary elections due
this autumn.
Among other measures designed to ease the cost of living,
Kaczynski said medicine would be available for free to people
over 65 and under 18, and the government would abolish tolls on
state-owned national highways.
Child benefit payments currently cost the state budget over
40 billion zlotys a year. The PiS leader did not say how much
the benefit increase would cost, but expressed confidence it
would not fuel inflation.
"We hope that inflation will be low in the new year, so this
new financial injection will no longer threaten a return to
inflationary tendencies - we have taken this into account,"
Kaczynski said.
Inflation eased to 14.7% in April from 16.1% in March and
Poland's central bank expects it to be in single digits by the
end of the year.
Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki wrote on Twitter that
the government will deal with the proposals announced at the
election convention at the next meeting.
The next election convention of the Law and Justice party is
to be held in June.
($1 = 4.1422 zlotys)
(Reported by Pawel Florkiewicz and Karol Badohal
Editing by David Goodman and Christina Fincher)
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