Russia cuts budgets to the bone
The Russian government in its budget plans for the period 2010-2012 intends to cut all posts, except national defence and social obligations.
Russian economy is in deep crisis, which is reflected in the government’s approval of the budget policy for the years 2010-2012. According to newspaper Vedomosti, all budget posts are planned cut, except for the Armed Forces and social obligations.
The 2010 budget will have a spending frame of 9.8 trillion RUB, of which more than 2.5 trillion will be pension obligations, 3.6 trillion — social spending, 333 billion – handling of state debts and 3.3 trillion to other projects, among them defence and the Sochi 2014 Olympics.
In last week’s budget meeting, PM Vladimir Putin stressed that meeting social obligations is the prime goal of the next years’ budgets. That will help minimize the serious consequences of the economic downturn on the average Russian and prevent social unrest.
Interestingly, Russia also upholds defence spending, something which is a very clear illustration of the current Russian policy priorities.
The crisis is creating serious development problems for Russia, which is expected to get close to 10 percent drop in GDP this year. Several experts now say that Russia will have to expect a long-term economic stagnation. The reason for that they say is the national economy’s strong dependency of the state and the insufficiently developed domestic markets.
