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Annual capital outflow from Russia to total $100 billion

MOSCOW, April 16. /ITAR-TASS/. Russia’s Economic Development Ministry forecasts that the outflow of capital from the country at the end of 2014 will stand at around $100 billion.

Economic Development Minister Alexei Ulyukayev said in the lower house of Russia’s parliament, the State Duma, on Wednesday that the outflow in the first quarter totaled $50 billion according to Central Bank statistics and $63 billion according to Economic Development Ministry statistics. The minister said the economic situation is the most critical since 2009, noting that it has become even tenser in the recent months.

“Uncertainty in global markets, investors’ unpreparedness to make investment decisions in a critical international situation that has formed in the past two months have added to internal slowdown factors,” Ulyukayev said.

Russia’s annual GDP grew 0.8% in the first quarter of 2014, he said. The forecast for the entire year is that the growth will slow down to 0.5% even if sanctions against Russia are not intensified. The minister said investment in fixed capital in the first quarter went down 4.8%.

Ulyukayev said the issue of co-financing by the federal budget of Russian constituent members’ work needs adjustment. This is in particular connected with the growth of the regional debt that has already reached 1,800 billion rubles ($50 billion).

Earlier the Finance Ministry proposed lowering the bar on co-financing of events in regions from the current 50% to 30%, which should release 80 billion rubles ($2.2 billion) into Russia’s budget.