Russia’s Reserve Fund falls 73.3%, Wealth Fund down 17% in 2016

MOSCOW, Jan 10 (PRIME) -- Russia’s Reserve Fund, which protects the budget against falls in oil prices, decreased 73.3% in 2016 to 972.13 billion rubles as of January 1, 2017, an equivalent of U.S. $16.03 billion, the Finance Ministry said in a statement on Tuesday.

In December 2016, the ministry sold $6.87 billion, 6.44 billion euros and 1.21 billion British from the Reserve Fund’s accounts with the central bank, received 966.9 billion rubles from the deal and transferred the money to the budget. Thus, the government spent a total of 2.137 trillion rubles from the fund in 2016 after spending 390 billion rubles in April, May and August each.

The National Wealth Fund, designed to secure the country’s pension system, fell 17% in the year to 4.359 trillion rubles, but rose 0.2% to $71.87 billion. In December 2016, the federal budget received 2.91 billion rubles of income from placing of the National Wealth Fund’s money in securities of Russian companies and 1.84 billion rubles of incomes from placement of the fund’s money at deposits of Vnesheconombank (VEB).

The combined income from placement of the fund’s money in approved financial assets excluding accounts with the central bank stood at 39.52 billion rubles in the year, the statement read.

The central bank also raised 8.76 billion rubles from management of money of the National Wealth Fund in 2016 and 10.51 billion rubles from management of money of the Reserve Fund in the year, the ministry said.

The ministry also said that VEB has retuned 15.98 billion rubles to the National Wealth Fund, used for provision of subordinate loans to subsidiary Sviaz-Bank, ahead of schedule.

(59.8961 rubles – U.S. $1)

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