MOSCOW, September 22. /TASS/. A small budget deficit is normal and in today's environment can become a driver of trade and economic restructuring. Valery Mironov, deputy head of the Development Center Institute at the National Research University Higher School of Economics, shared this opinion with TASS.

Earlier, Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin said at a cabinet meeting that the government tried to make the federal budget deficit minimal as possible in the coming years. According to files related with the draft budget, the deficit could reach 1.6 trillion rubles ($16.7 bln) in 2024, 0.9 trillion rubles ($9.4 bln) in 2025 and 1.5 trillion rubles ($15.6 bln) in 2026.

"Strictly speaking, a deficit is the same as a loan. If it is not too excessive, it is the driver of trade or structural adjustment, if we talk about the budget deficit in today's conditions. Moreover, the deficit itself is not so large. It is, if take for 2024-2025, even less than expected in the three-year plan, which was developed last year. That is, the budget deficit will be 1 trillion rubles less in 2024-2025," Mironov noted.

He also clarified that the current size of the National Wealth Fund, which amounted to 13 trillion rubles ($135 bln) as of September 1, six trillion of which is the liquid part, makes it possible to close the existing gap in budget expenditures and revenues.

According to the expert, the country’s public debt in relation to GDP is quite low, which also opens up the possibility of financing the budget deficit by increasing public debt.

"Our public debt to GDP, according to the IMF, is about 20% in total. In 1998, when we lived and didn’t think, it was 135%, which is seven times more. <…>At the same time, the public debt of 20% of GDP - this is below 40% of GDP, an increase above which is considered unsafe for the country’s macroeconomic stability," Mironov clarified.