Russia may unfreeze pension savings if oil rises above $80

MOSCOW, Oct 14 (PRIME) -- The Russian government may partially unfreeze pension savings only if external economic conditions improve greatly, for instance, if the oil price rises above U.S. $80 per barrel, Deputy Finance Minister Alexei Moiseyev told reporters on Friday.

“We have no plans to unfreeze (pension savings). There is a three-year period (2017–2019) that encompasses the freeze. But if oil suddenly rises above $80, or something else like that happens, then we may study a partial unfreeze,” Moiseyev said.

The government froze the 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.

Deputy Economic Development Minister Oleg Fomichyov said previously that the ministry had offered to unfreeze pension savings in 2017 partially and start allocating the 6% payment to form the mandatory part of savings, or at least work out an interim option of transferring 1% of the payment and later gradually increasing it to 6%.

(63.3465 rubles – U.S. $1)

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