The Federal Budget Wakes Up
The Russian Finance Ministry published data yesterday on the income and expenditures of the federal budget in October, showing that both sides of the budget rose sharply that month. The sale of YUKOS assets was the main cause of the increase in income to the budget, to 1.1 trillion rubles, almost twice the average for the previous months of the year, and fighting the liquidity crisis and election preparations accounted for the greater expenditures, 637.6 billion rubles, 1.66 times greater than the average.
There was a record 462.4-billion ruble surplus in the budget last month, that is, about 15 percent of the GDP. The budget surplus for October is about twice the yearly average and nearly tree times the surplus for September. While expenditures for the year are nearly on schedule (with 90.9 percent of all planned annual expenditures having been made and 660 billion rubles planned for monthly spending in November and December), a record amount of money was withdrawn from the economy. Annual inflation threatens to reach 11 percent nonetheless.
www.kommersant.com
All the Article in Russian as of Nov. 13, 2007
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