Russia's State Budget in January-April 2015

Abstract

According to the recent data released by the Federal Treasury, within January–April 2015 the federal budget revenues fell by 0.6 p.p. of GDP and the expenses went up by 4.7 p.p. of GDP on the same period of the previous year. Revenues and expenses of the consolidated budget of the subjects of the Russian Federation over January–March 2015 went up by 1.1 and 0.3 p.p. of GDP respectively. The amount of the federal budget deficit for the first four months of 2015 constituted 4.7% of GDP, while the consolidated budget of RF subjects over January–March of 2015 has been executed with a surplus of 1.5% of GDP. Dynamics of the main parameters of the federal and consolidated budgets of RF subjects post a variety of trends and confirm both most optimistic projections about the end of the acute phase of the Russian economic crisis and the most pessimistic projections about the GDP contraction by 2.5% by the year-end of 2015. A number of interrelated factors both internal and external and their unpredictability have aggravated the problem of feasibility of socio-economic development forecast for selecting main parameters of the budgetary system of the Russian Federation for the medium term.

Keywords: Russian economy, state budget, budget deficit, revenues, outlays

JEL Classification: H61, H50, H20, H70