UPDATE: PM: Russia’s budget income can exceed forecast by 1 tln rbl

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MOSCOW, May 18 (PRIME) – The Russian federal budget revenue can exceed an official forecast by 1 trillion rubles in 2017, Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said at a government meeting on Thursday.

“As for the federal budget income. It grew by almost 22% on the year in the first four months. This is at face value,” Medvedev said.

“We expect that this trend will remain, the total amount of income will be higher than we’ve planned while approving the budget. The estimates vary but it can be over a trillion rubles. This means that we can settle the budget with a lesser deficit than planned.”

The positive trends in the Russian economy persist and will hopefully become more noticeable in 2017, he said.

Additional subsidies are planned in a wide range of areas, Medvedev said. For instance, additional 24 billion rubles will be allocated for industry stimulation, including transport and special machinery manufacturing. Subsidies to high-tech goods producers, companies setting foot on foreign markets and participating in the program of foreign goods replacement will be extended.

Transport infrastructure will receive additional 15 billion rubles of subsidies; the Russian Agricultural bank 25 billion rubles, the pension system 11.5 billion rubles, the program of disabled people recovery 1.5 billion rubles. Regions which will show outstanding fiscal results will receive 10 billion rubles in subsidies and more than 3 billion rubles is to be spent on regional support.

(56.7383 rubles – U.S. $1)

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