Finance Minister Anton Siluanov spoke about three general principles on which the new budget rule will be built.
“We need to determine the amount of spending, which is based on moderately optimistic oil and gas revenues. Previously, there was a cut-off price, now, in conditions where, in addition to the price of oil , supply volumes are important, we have made a certain dependence of budget revenues not only on price, but also on various options for the volume of production and EXPORT of hydrocarbons,” Siluanov told reporters on the sidelines of the Petersburg International Economic Forum, RBC correspondent reports.
“The average value, which will be in the non-risk zone for the budget, is proposed to be taken to calculate the budget rule,” the minister added. Under the old budget rule, which has been inactive since February 2022 due to the freezing of state foreign exchange reserves, total annual budget spending was determined by the sum of oil and gas revenues at the base oil price ($40 per barrel in 2017 prices) and non-oil and gas revenues.
“The second innovation is that we want to plunge into the spending ceiling, which is defined by the budget rule as oil and gas plus non-oil and gas, we want to include in it those quasi-expenditures that are now spent below the line in the form of loans, so that there is no temptation to increase quasi-budgetary operations, which are actually clean expenses. It is proposed to include them in the maximum volume of budget obligations, which will be determined by the budget rule,” Siluanov said.
Currently, sources of financing the deficit (rather than spending) include budget loans issued by the federal government to the regions, as well as bilateral loans to other states and foreign legal entities.
Third, according to Siluanov, the budget will continue to save reserves from high oil prices. “Saving in rubles is also an option. We can consider an alternative in yuan,” the minister said. About 45% of the liquid reserves of the National Welfare Fund (NWF) - in euros, pounds sterling, Japanese yen - were frozen by Western countries.
Siluanov specified that the mechanism of the budget rule has yet to be discussed in the government. At the end of April, the minister said that proposals for a new rule were being worked out at the ministry level. Earlier this week, the Ministry of Finance announced that due to sanctions, it will no longer disclose the direction of budget spending, such as the national economy, defense or social policy, as well as sources of financing the budget deficit.
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In addition, the minister said that this year the federal budget deficit is expected to be up to 2% of GDP. As of mid-June, a surplus of 840 billion rubles was recorded, but this is a temporary phenomenon. Financing of budget expenditures from the NWF this year may amount to 3-4 trillion rubles. Also, Siluanov did not rule out attracting domestic borrowing in 2022 (in April he said that the Ministry of Finance would not enter the debt market this year because of the “cosmic” cost of borrowing). However, before entering the market, the Ministry of Finance “would like to first decide on the design of the budget policy, primarily on the budget rule,” Siluanov said.