Russian Finance Minister Anton Siluanov has presented a draft budget for 2017 and the planned period of 2018-2019 at the plenary session of the State Duma.
According to the draft, budget revenues will be 13.487 trillion rubles in 2017, 14.028 trillion rubles in 2018 and 14.844 trillion rubles in 2019. Expenditures will be 16.240 trillion rubles in 2017, 16.039 trillion rubles in 2018 and 15.986 trillion rubles in 2019. The federal budget deficit in 2017 will amount to 2.753 trillion rubles, and will gradually decrease to 2.011 trillion rubles in 2018 and 1.142 trillion rubles in 2019, TASS writes.
"The budget provided for the indexation of pensions and benefits in accordance with the current legislation. The necessary expenses to increase salaries were taken into account," the minister noted.
The Finance Minister said that the improvement of the control over taxpayers will provide an opportunity to attract 150-200 billion rubles to the budget every year".
Siluanov added that the Cabinet intends to gradually reduce the volume of budgetary credits to the regions due to a decrease in market interest rates. In general, it is planned to allocate 100 billion rubles for budgetary credits in 2017.
The Finance Minister also said that the 1% income tax will be collected from the federal budget to help regions. It is expected that this amount will reach 121 billion rubles. "20 billion rubles are provided to help the regions, which provide a high level of growth," the official said.
Speaking of the Reserve Fund, the head of the Finance Ministry said that over the past two years, Russia has spent 4.7 trillion rubles from the Reserve Fund, at the end of the year it amounts 1.1 trillion rubles.
A professor of the RANEPA Chair of Economics and Finance of the Public Sector, Lyudmila Pronina, told Vestnik Kavkaza earlier that, on the one hand, the current draft budget retains social obligations, but on the other hand, it is aimed at the development.
"The formula of any growth in the economy is innovation, investment and human capital," the expert recalled, adding that according to the draft budget, investments are gradually increasing, throughout the three-year plan.
"In 2017, Russia's GDP is indicated at 0.2%, in 2018 they expect investments to increase by about 2%. This is one of the sources," the professor of the RANEPA Chair of Economics and Finance of the Public Sector noted.
Speaking about innovations, Pronina pointed out to the territories of advancing economic development in the Far East, as well as to the special economic zones, some of which show very good development.
Speaking about the health care, the analyst expressed concern about the fact that the deficit in the Fund of obligatory medical insurance has exceeded the level of 500 billion rubles.
The expert welcomed not only the prolongation of a one-time payment to all pensioners, except for the military, for 2017, but also indexing, considering the level of actual inflation. "There will be even the indexation for non-working pensioners, considering the actual inflation of 5.8%, it is a good thing as well," she said.
