Finance Ministry has released data on the size of the RF Reserve Fund and the National Welfare Fund. They amounted to $162.5 billion on aggregate as of May 1. Both funds lost in April more than $1.5 billion on the U.S. dollar depreciation.
Photo: Alexander Miridonov
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Weak Dollar Slows Down Stab Fund Growth
Finance Ministry has released data on the size of the RF Reserve Fund and the National Welfare Fund. They amounted to $162.5 billion on aggregate as of May 1. Both funds lost in April more than $1.5 billion on the U.S. dollar depreciation. Regardless, their current revenues are well above the forecasted amount due to the skyrocketing prices for crude oil.
According to the web of the RF Finance Ministry, the Reserve Fund amounted to 3.069 trillion rubles, or $129.8 billion, as of May 1, while the size of the National Welfare Fund was 773.8 billion rubles, or $32.7 billion. The amount was 3.068 trillion rubles ($130.5 billion) and 773.6 billion rubles ($32.9 billion) as of April 1 respectively.
Russia’s Stabilization Fund was divided into the Reserve Fund and the National Welfare Fund January 30, 2008. The former is aimed at securing budget costs should the crude oil prices suffer material decline, while the purpose of the latter is to settle pension difficulties. The money is placed into assets denominated in foreign currency with the U.S. dollar and euro accounting for 45 percent each and Britain’s pound covering the remaining 10 percent. Oil and gas revenues of the federal budget have been flowing to a separate account since 2008.
But that placement of funds' money yields no profits so far. Taken from January 30 to April 30, the Finance Ministry says, the estimated amount of revenues generated by placing the money of Reserve Fund and National Welfare Fund was 25.44 billion rubles with the negative gap in the exchange rate of 37.14 billion rubles. During that period, the estimated dollar revenues of Reserve Fund stood at $0.85 billion (20.08 billion rubles), while the exchange rate difference calculated as a result of revaluation of the currency account balance was -28.16 billion rubles. The National Welfare fund had $0.23 billion (5.36 billion) and –8.98 billion rubles respectively. Regardless, those losses of Finance Ministry appear trifle vs the gains generated from the gap of the actual prices for crude oil and the price stipulated in the budget.
www.kommersant.com
All the Article in Russian as of May 05, 2008
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