The government increased the 2016 budget by 175 billion rubles. - mainly due to the restoration of expenditures on the power unit, which the Ministry of Finance proposed to cut. This means that the budget deficit will not be 2.8% of GDP, but 3%

Photo: "RIA Novosti"

The government decided to spend 175 billion rubles in 2016. more than what the Ministry of Finance offered yesterday. As Finance Minister Anton Siluanov said, “part of the expenses that were proposed to be reduced in the security sector has been restored - by 165 billion rubles, as well as by 10 billion rubles. allocations for providing housing to veterans of the Great Patriotic War have been increased,” an RBC correspondent reports.

For this reason, the minister explained, the budget deficit in 2016 will not be 2.8% of GDP, as follows from yesterday’s draft of the Ministry of Finance, but 3% of GDP. The Ministry of Finance proposed to close the budget with a deficit of 2.184 trillion rubles, and now the deficit increases to 2.36 trillion. The main source of financing the deficit will be the Reserve Fund.

Earlier today, the government approved a draft one-year (previously the budget was drawn up for three years) anti-crisis budget for 2016. The budget was drawn up based on economic growth of 0.7% in 2016 and inflation of 6.4%, the average price of Urals oil at $50/barrel. (basic macro forecast). Savings are achieved by reducing the indexation of insurance pensions to 4% (however, the possibility of further indexation in the second half of the year is included), extending the freeze on pension savings by 342 billion rubles, and sequestering a number of government programs.

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Additional income is planned to be obtained by maintaining the export duty on oil (instead of reducing it) at the 2015 level and increasing the mineral extraction tax rates for Gazprom, increasing the scrappage tax rates on cars, and increasing from 75 to 90% the share of Bank of Russia profits transferred to the budget .

The Ministry of Finance also included several anti-crisis reserves in the draft budget, Anton Siluanov spoke about three of them today. This is a fund worth 150 billion rubles. to support certain sectors of the economy, a fund of 342 billion rubles, formed by freezing funded pensions, and a budget reserve of up to 500 billion rubles. (source - Reserve Fund), which can be used to cover the budget deficit if revenues are less than planned.

The government refused to cut budget spending on security forces