Minister: Russia’s budget deficit not to exceed 2% of GDP in 2017

MOSCOW, Dec 7 (PRIME) -- Russia’s budget deficit will not exceed 2% of gross domestic product (GDP) in 2017, Finance Minister Anton Siluanov said on Thursday at a government meeting.

“What expectations do we have for 2017? We expect that budget deficit will not exceed 2% of GDP this year, which is lower than we’ve initially planned…It is connected to a higher additional income, as we’ve said before,” Siluanov said.

The ministry expects 2017 spending to be smaller than the planned figure by 350 billion rubles, and that the government will transfer the amount to 2018.

“We expect a slightly smaller fulfillment of the spending part of the budget by 350 billion rubles. First, this is the spending that we will transfer to next year. We mean that it was connected to the road fund and state contracts, and we’ve agreed that we will transfer state contracts and spending on them, which we didn’t use this year, to next year,” he said.

The government plans to spend the Reserve Fund completely and to spend 662 billion rubles from the National Wealth Fund this year, with the latter fund amounting to 3.7 trillion rubles as of January 1, 2018. “At the same time, the liquid part, the clear balance of the fund that was not invested into assets, will amount to 2.3 trillion rubles,” he said, adding that the government plans to replenish reserves over the next three years.

The current budget encompasses a deficit of 2.1% of GDP in 2017 with revenue of 14.72 trillion rubles and spending of 16.728 trillion rubles.

(58.9281 rubles – U.S. $1)

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