PRESS: Govt approves 10% cut of some budget spending in 2024

MOSCOW, Jul 19 (PRIME) -- The Russian government has supported the Finance Ministry’s proposal of cutting the so-called non-protected budget spending in 2024 by 10%, Vedomosti business daily reported on Wednesday citing several sources.

According to a source close to the government, the cut will amount to only 450 billion rubles.

The Budget Code does not split spending into protected and non-protected categories, though the terms are widely used even in official documents. The protected articles include spending that cannot be cut under any circumstances, mainly social obligations and some military spending, while the remaining spending is non-protected. The source close to the government said that in this case non-protected spending means spending unsupported by financial calculations.

The ministry representative told Vedomosti that the final sum of the cut had not been defined yet, and that the budget articles and reduction of spending would be defined later by the relevant authorities and deputy prime ministers. Social spending, payments to the public officials, inter-budget transfers, and other protected articles will not be cut, the representative said.

The representative also said that the ministry had also cut budget spending in 2022, and the funds would be redistributed to the priority goals of the government.

The Finance Ministry did not provide an official comment.

(90.6906 rubles – U.S. $1)

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