Page 70 - RusRPTNov20

The minimal initial payment was reduced from 20% to 15% in August. According to Deputy Minister of Finance Alexei Moiseev, banks had concluded over 224,000 mortgage contracts worth more than RUB630bn as of 8 October. The new parameters of the program should be defined after 1 November, according to previous statements made by Deputy Prime Minister Marat Khusnullin.
In order to reduce the Russian budget deficit, expenditure growth will be slowed down in the coming years.​ The Ministry of Finance recently published the fiscal guidelines for 2021–2023, which cover the entire consolidated budget, ie the budgets of the federation, regions and municipalities, and the three state social funds. At the end of September, the government sent the draft budgets of the federation and social funds to the Duma.
This year, nominal general government revenue is projected to contract by more than 7%. The decrease in revenue would be 10% without the central bank surplus account resulting from the sale of Sberbank from the central bank to the state.
Revenues from oil and gas taxes will decrease by a third, but other budget revenues are expected to remain almost unchanged with the Sberbank settlement.
Expenditure will increase by more than 10%, although its growth will slow down in the latter months of the year. On the other hand, spending may increase even more, as the treasury has rarely been prepared to transfer a large amount of funds to a separate government fund, from, which spending can be quickly allocated mainly to supporting the economy and fighting the coronavirus.
The general government surplus was almost 2% of GDP in 2019, but has turned into a deficit, Next year, the economy is expected to recover at a rate of 3.3% and growth will continue almost the same in the coming years.
The price of Urals export oil is expected to rise this year and remain at around $45-47, and oil and gas production and exports are expected to increase. As a result, oil and gas tax revenues would increase by more than 15% per year between 2021 and 2022. Other budget revenues are estimated to grow at an annual rate of about 7%. In particular, the largest revenue item, VAT revenue (almost one-fifth of revenue), is expected to continue to grow at a rapid pace, as in recent years.
The growth of nominal general government expenditure is planned to weigh on a couple of per cent per year in 2021–2022, ie slower than the forecasted inflation of less than 4%.
70 ​RUSSIA Country Report​ November 2020 www.intellinews.com