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 The 2015-2017 budget allows for tapping into the country's reserves
for the first time since the 2008 global crisis, while foreseeing an
end to real wage growth, a struggle to tame inflation and a falling
rouble.
It also relies on optimistic forecasts for oil prices at a time when
borrowing abroad to cover any deficit slippage will be tough amid
tightening Western sanctions.
Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev told a government meeting on the
budget that Russia would keep its debt low, ensure macroeconomic
stability and fulfill social spending promises despite strains on
the budget from Western sanctions.
"This is the first time when work on the federal budget, the
three-year budget, took place in such difficult circumstances, when
an economic slowdown was exacerbated by the implementation of
sanctions on individual sectors of the economy, and when we needed
to adjust an already tight budget," Medvedev said.
"The main problem that we face today is the high level of
uncertainty when it comes to how fast trust will return, how soon
businesses become interested in investing, how the consumer market
grows and what steps our partners will take," he said.
Finance Minister Anton Siluanov told reporters he expected Russia's
budget deficit for the three-year period covered by the budget to
total around 0.6 percent.
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He said the government had decided not to impose a sales tax from
next year to boost tax revenues and that the budget envisaged
creating an anti-crisis reserve fund for next year of 190 billion
rubles ($4.9 billion).
(1 US dollar = 38.4650 Russian rouble)
(Reporting by Lidia Kelly; Writing by Alexander Winning; Editing by
Gabriela Baczynska and Ralph Boulton)
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