MOSCOW, February 28 (Itar-Tass) – The Union State of Russia and Belarus will allocate five billion roubles from its budget to fund 11 joint programs in 2013, head of Russia’s Audit Chamber Sergei Stepashin said on Thursday.
Last year, he noted, the Union State budget financed only four joint programs. Generally, from 65 to 75 percent of the Union State annual budgetary spending goes to finance joint programs. “It means that the Union State was much quicker to provide for program budgets than the budgets of our individual economies,” Stepashin noted. “The Russian budget will have a program component only in 2014, while the Union State budget is operating in such regime to 70 percent already now.”
The Russian Audit Chamber chairman noted that mutual trade between Russia and Belarus was gradually increasing. In 2012 alone, it was up by 10 percent on the previous year. “Now we can say that despite new crisis-rooted challenges the economic situation in the Union State is stable in general,” Stepashin stressed. “So, we can draw a very important conclusion: the mere existence of the Union State, especially of its economic component, despite problems facing our countries, is a good impetus for the developments of its member economies.”
Apart from that, Stepashin noted, the Union State budgetary incomes have been increasing over the past several years. Moreover, the budget now is better executed. Now, according to him, the current cash execution of the budget exceeds 90 percent, while in previous year the budget was executed by two thirds at most.