Fin min: Budget most stable against volatile oil prices in 9 yrs

MOSCOW, Jun 9 (PRIME) -- The Russian budget is now most stable in the last nine years against the oil price volatility, Finance Minister Anton Siluanov said on Friday presenting draft budget amendments to the parliament’s lower house, the State Duma.

“We see that non-energy budget deficit of the budget, which was calculated without revenues from oil and gas, is falling. This shows stability of our budget against different changes in external economic situation,” he said, adding that the factor will fall by 0.6 percentage points to 8.4% of gross domestic product (GDP) this year. “This is the lowest figure we had over the past nine years.”

“Our task is to cut the influence of the external economic situation on fulfillment of our budget. We think that the factor of non-energy budget deficit should amount to 5–6% of GDP, which is a safe figure.”

The combined budget deficit will also amount to 2.1% of GDP in 2017, lower than 3.2% of GDP the ministry expected last year when it formed the budget, he added.

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