Page 60 - RusRPTDec22

6.0 Public Sector 6.1 Budget
Russia’s Duma passed the draft federal budget for 2023-2025 in the second reading at a plenary session on November 22.
Russia’s budget expenditures will total RUB29 trillion ($477bn) in 2023, RUB29.4 trillion ($484bn) in 2024, and RUB29.2 trillion ($480bn) in 2025, according to the draft document.
Revenues will stand at RUB26.1 trillion ($430bn) in 2023, RUB27.2 trillion ($448bn) in 2024, and RUB27.9 trillion ($459bn) in 2025.
The deficit in 2023 is projected at 2% of GDP (or around RUB3 trillion), with mainly borrowings planned to be used to cover it. The budget deficit will gradually decrease to 0.7% in 2025.
The draft budget is based on a baseline outlook on Russia’s socio-economic development for 2023-2025, which suggests a gradual decline of the Urals oil price from $80 per barrel in 2022 to $65 in 2025, the moderate weakening of the ruble’s exchange rate from 68.1 to 72.2 rubles per $1 and the return to the targeted inflation level of 4% by the end of 2024 from 12.4% in 2022.
The baseline scenario assumes that the Russian economy will shift to recovery growth in early 2023, whereas by the end of 2024 the majority of the main indicators, including GDP, industrial production, fixed investment, will surpass the pre-crisis level in comparable prices.
Russian defence and national security spending will make up a third of the budget in 2023, or about $155bn. Apart from social payouts and patriotic training, spending on everything else will be cut: healthcare by 9%, education by 2%, infrastructure by 23.5%, and industrial spending by 18.5%. Russia has already put its economy on a war footing.
60 RUSSIA Country Report December 2022 www.intellinews.com