PRESS: Russian fin ministry offers to spend extra oil, gas income

MOSCOW, Jun 29 (PRIME) -- The Russian Finance Ministry has offered not to contribute any additional oil and gas revenue of the state budget to the Reserve Fund, spending it on current needs, Kommersant business daily reported on Thursday, citing documents of the ministry.

“The proposal is not to transfer the unplanned additional 2017 revenue – amounting to 687 billion rubles, which must be contributed to the Reserve Fund – in 2018, and to spend it on current needs and not to touch the National Wealth Fund – which in accordance with the old plan must fall to 3.1 trillion rubles from 4.1 trillion rubles – including in 2019–2020,” the ministry said.

The ministry forecasts 630 billion ruble additional budget revenue in 2018, of which 266 billion rubles will come from oil and gas. Privatization is not expected to bring more than 10–15 billion rubles per year.

“All these factors allow us to raise the federal budget spending to 16.22 trillion rubles from the planned 16.04 trillion rubles in 2018, while simultaneously reducing the budget deficit to 1.6% of the gross domestic product (GDP) in 2018 and to 0.8–0.9% in 2019–2020.” The achievement of budget balance will be postponed for one year, the ministry said.

(59.5415 rubles – U.S. $1)

End