Revised Russian State Budget
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has signed the revised State Budget for 2009. The budget shows a 2.9 trillion RUB deficit.
While the original budget was based on an oil price of 95 USD per barrel, the revised budget is based on an oil price of 41 USD. This reduces incomes from 10.9 trillion RUB to 6.7 trillion RUB. The deficit will be covered with means from the reserve fund, while another 1.4 trillion RUB will be used for anti-crisis measures, Rossiyskaya Gazeta writes.
Following the crisis, the Russian authorities now intends to abandon plans for the application of three-year budget planning, and rather use only one-year budget plans.
In spite of the economic hardship, the Russian government is trying to soften the impact of the crisis on people’s lives says Head of State Duma’s Committee for Budgets and Taxes Yury Valsilyev. – While other European countries are cutting expenses on social goals, Russia is increasing them. This mainly concerns pensions and labour-market measures.
