Acceleration of the ruble

The government has applied another anti-crisis technology - spend money faster

How to make sure that officials execute the federal budget on time? Dmitry Medvedev's method: "Push in all places." At a recent meeting, the president recalled how last summer he put things in order with the financing of the defense order. The government was slowly preparing contracts with defense enterprises, and they were sitting without money. This is a typical story: at the beginning of the year, the government slows down with budget spending, and the funds do not reach the real economy, and at the end of the year, a wave of money splashes into the economy, infecting it with inflation.

This year was supposed to be different. Back in January, Finance Minister Aleksei Kudrin reported to the president that the Finance Ministry sent the so-called budget commitment limits to all departments in time, without which not a single institution can spend a single ruble. Usually there is a delay with this.

Last week, the Federal Treasury published data on budget execution for January-February. It follows from them that Kudrin's promises were not in vain. By March, the government had spent 15.3% of what it planned for the year instead of the usual 10-12%. The difference seems small, but the amount is decent - 386 billion rubles. Expenses are almost evenly distributed, and if this continues, then there will be no cash congestion, which usually urgently needs to be sorted out at the end of the year, and no one will have to “push”. But even more important is the fact that, by spending money on time, the state can help the economy, which is still in no hurry to recover.

It would seem that everything is going well. Last week, oil and Russian stock indices hit new highs for a year and a half, one might say, returned to pre-crisis times. Oil has risen in price to $85 per barrel, and the RTS index has broken the bar of 1600 points. But victorious reports are not heard. It seems that for the real economy, all this news means nothing. Back in February, the Ministry of Economic Development admitted that the recovery growth that had begun in the second half of last year had stopped. GDP decreased by 0.9% compared to January. “This is just a small pause,” they said at the time in the ministry and referred to the harsh winter. The cold helps power engineers, but in construction, for example, it leads to a decrease in activity.

However, the preliminary results of March confirmed an unpleasant trend - the economy is stagnant. Expert of the Center for Macroeconomic Analysis and Short-Term Forecasting (CMASF) Vladimir Salnikov noted that even after adjusting for spring, the average daily electricity consumption in March did not increase, which means that there is no dynamics. In the center, the general situation in the economy is called the "consensus of uncertainty." Consumers are uncertain about keeping their jobs and are reluctant to spend. Managers do not see a recovery in demand and are in no hurry to increase production. Bankers doubt that companies will have enough income to pay their debts on time, so they are reluctant to give loans. In February, the volume of loans to the real sector fell by 0.2%, which is 26 billion rubles.

There is a version that it is not only the caution of banks. Valery Mironov from the Development Center points out that due to the low profitability of production, the business itself prefers not to take risks: not to take new loans, not to make investments, but to make ends meet only at the expense of proceeds.

It is impossible to live in such a swamp for a long time. The source of the missing demand can be large scale corporations, for example, LUKOIL or Severstal. CMASF estimated that 20 such companies announced plans to increase their investment programs in 2010 by a total of 23%. They are export-oriented and feel much more confident than the average Russian business. If these promises are kept, the overall level of investment will increase by about 5%. Another thing is that the crisis has clearly shown that any plans can be quickly changed. Suffice it to recall investments in the electric power industry.

There is little hope for the private sector, but the state can stimulate the economy. That's why budgeting is so important. Another thing is that the treasury can encourage investment demand, or maybe consumer demand. The priorities were chosen last year when the budget was adopted. The government decided to freeze investments in new roads and bridges this year. The main thing is social spending, especially the increase in pensions, designed to maintain political stability. Pensions have already caused a statistical effect: over the past year, the salaries of working Russians have grown by 2% (mainly at the expense of state employees, private companies still prefer not to raise wages), but the real incomes of all citizens, including pensioners, by as much as 8% .

World Bank economists hope social spending will help restore domestic demand. In the latest forecast, the bank predicts Russia will grow by 5-5.5% this year. The government is still much more modest and expects no more than 3.2%. According to the WB, the acceleration of growth will be helped not only by high prices for oil, gas and metals, but also by an increase in pensions. Pensioners will buy cheap domestic goods.

“In the short term, this will give an incentive to the economy, but then you will have to fulfill increased obligations, and the question will arise - due to what?” - warns the economist of the bank "Trust" Vladimir Bragin. But this problem will be puzzled in the White House in the future. In the meantime, Federal Treasury officials are concerned that the Pension Fund has enough money to pay new pensions. Of the expenses in January and February, almost half - 660 billion rubles - will go to pensions. So, points out Elena Lebedinskaya from the Economic Expert Group, "the uniformity of spending is some kind of illusion." Articles that are not related to social obligations are financed at a slow pace. For example, only 5.3% of the annual plan was spent on the National Economy section. In addition, the federal budget is about two-thirds of all government spending, the rest of the money is spent in the regions, and here everything depends on the promptness of regional officials.

And yet, we can expect that there will be no dams on the way of budget money to the economy. The Ministry of Finance and the Treasury are now working in more comfortable conditions than in previous years, Vladimir Klimanov, director of the Institute for Reforming Public Finance, points out. “Before the crisis, budget expenditures grew by 20-30% per year,” he recalls. Every year new targeted programs or national projects appeared. But there is a big bureaucratic distance between the budget line “expenses for maternity capital” and the money given to the mother of the second child. You need to write a lot of instructions on exactly how to distribute this money. Moreover, they are written by officials from different ministries, who always have reasons to argue and play for time. Hence the crashes. This year, the budget has few new obligations, the expenses “familiar” to officials are financed, and they objectively have less paperwork.

If the spending really goes without delays and jobs, the state will be able not only to stimulate the economy, but also to reduce inflation in the first months of 2011. The increase in spending at the end of the year is already felt in January-February. Now inflation is declining and does not look like a serious problem. By the end of March, consumer prices rose by 3.2% against 5.2% at the same time last year. This is one of the few positive consequences of the crisis.

But economists warn that, in fact, inflation has not been defeated. It has declined along with production and demand, but as soon as the economy recovers, the old problems will return: low levels of competition, state monopolists who will always convince the state to raise tariffs. In addition, the persistence of high oil prices will cause an inflow of capital, which also works for inflation. In this case, Russia is waiting for a new surge in price growth. The government forecast for the year is no more than 7.5%, but, for example, Citibank's forecast for Russia is 8.9%. So accuracy with budgetary expenses in any case will be useful.