Cbanker says unfreezing of pension savings of Russians unlikely

MOSCOW, Feb 15 (PRIME) -- It is unlikely that Russians’ pension savings will be unfrozen, Central Bank Chairwoman Elvira Nabiullina told the Federation Council, the parliament’s upper house on Wednesday.

The government froze the mandatory accumulative part of pension savings for 2014 and 2015, and used 6% of the accumulative part to pay pensions to the current retirees. In December 2015, the measure was prolonged for 2016 in order to gain 342.2 billion rubles for the budget.

“We see the budget situation and that the insured part of pensions is largely financed by the federal budget, meaning the system is not balanced in the part of insurance contributions. This is why we see that mandatory pension savings are unlikely to be unfrozen,” Nabiullina said.

“But citizens need pension savings. And the possibility to accumulate state pensions is also necessary,” she said, adding that pension savings is a source of long money in the economy.

“That is why we have offered a system of the pension capital. It is of a voluntary civil character, but it has an auto subscription. Citizens will be automatically introduced into it, but they have the right to reject it or join the system any time,” she said, adding that polls of experts showed that only 18% of citizens said they didn’t want to participate in the system.

The government is now discussing stimuli for citizens and employers to support participation in the system, she said.

In October 2016, Deputy Finance Minister Alexei Moiseyev said the 2017–2019 period also encompasses the freeze and savings may be partially unfrozen only if the external economic conditions improve greatly, for instance, if the oil price rises above U.S. $80 per barrel.

(57.7388 rubles – U.S. $1)

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