In the coming days Russian President Vladimir Putin is to sign many financial laws, including the 2013 budget, as well as tax changes linked with it and pension reform system documents. According to media reports, the budget is still anti-social and is oriented towards security, defence and law enforcement.
The Moskovsky Komsomolets daily gives the budget parameters. In 2013 the country’s GDP is to amount to 66.515 trillion roubles. The inflation rate is to be less than 5.5 percent. In 2014 and 2015 – GDP is to be 73.993 trillion roubles and 82.937 trillion roubles, respectively; inflation - under 5 percent.
The price of oil in 2013, 2014, 2015, according to the macroeconomic forecast is 97, 101 and 104 US dollars per barrel, respectively. With the new fiscal rule the oil price included in the calculation of the budget revenues and expenditures, is taken into account in the amount of 91, 92 and 93 US dollars per barrel, respectively.
Budget revenues in 2013 will amount to 12.866 trillion roubles, expenditures – to 13.387 trillion roubles. The federal budget deficit in 2013 will be 521.415 billion roubles or 0.8 percent of GDP.
For 2014 and 2015, budget revenues are determined in the amount of 14.063 trillion and 15.616 trillion roubles, respectively. Expenditures in 2014 are planned at 14.207 trillion roubles, including conditionally approved 355 billion roubles. The budget expenditures for 2015 are projected at 15.626 trillion roubles and conditionally approved 781.3 billion roubles. The budget deficit in 2014 is projected at 143.6 billion roubles, in 2015 - 10.8 billion roubles (0.2 percent of GDP and 0.01 percent of GDP).
In some cases, the government is yet prepared to fund the construction of the humanitarian sector facilities, the Moskovsky Komsomolets newspaper writes. So, in 2013, the federal budget will allocate 1.7 billion roubles to the RF regions for the purchase of pre-fabricated health and fitness complexes. Another 300 million roubles are to be allocated for the construction of swimming pools at universities of the Russian Health Ministry and one billion roubles is to be allocated to the Ministry of Education. However, it is not planned to expand humanitarian investments in the regions not; on the contrary, their reduction is planned in view of the further deterioration of the economic situation.
Almost no increase in spending is planned for the support of the national economy. However, in connection with Russia’s accession to the WTO, 5 billion roubles are to be allocated for a number of “problematic” sectors. It is a miserable quantity in general. The support of the domestic industry in the difficult WTO conditions is provided mainly through easing of some legislative (not tax!) requirement for the relevant industry sectors.
However, the funding of the defence and security sphere, as well as funding of law enforcement agencies remains untouched, the newspaper said. Experts believe that the main drawback of the new budget is its bias towards the defence, because of which the economy and humanitarian spheres suffer. Instead, the government this time intends to spend a large sum of money on the police force for the protection of the regime inside the country.
Meanwhile, according to the Nezavisimaya Gazeta daily, Vladimir Putin promised at a meeting with the parliamentary parties to consider the matter of financial laws again. Because it has turned out that not all ideas of the lawmakers are supported by budget allocations. The government of Dmitry Medvedev generally poorly copes with financial planning, says the publication. After the adoption of the budget for 2013 the Federation Council suddenly found out that more money is needed also to the judicial system and some security agencies – it’s a gap of tens of billions of roubles.