Russia's budget deficit will be within 3% of GDP in 2026 - Siluanov

MOSCOW. Sept 21 (Interfax) - The Russian federal budget could be executed with a deficit of 3% of GDP in 2026, Russian Finance Minister Anton Siluanov said.

"As the budget is being executed, additional funding and expenditure needs have arisen, for which additional funding sources were available. We expect the budget deficit to be larger than planned this year, but within 3% of GDP," he said in an interview with Vesti Information System at the Moscow Finance Forum (MFF).

The minister also said that residual budget funds would be the main source of funding for the deficit.

"We will enter the market, but within limits that ensure our stable position on the financial market. The overall volume of borrowings which we had planned will be somewhat exceeded, but this will not be reflected on finances under any circumstances," he said.

Siluanov said that the Finance Ministry forecast that the National Wealth Fund (NWF) could be replenished by between 600 billion rubles and 1 trillion rubles this year. "By the end of the year, the fund could contain up to 5 trillion rubles [the liquid part of the NWF], and we can therefore see that the market situation allows us to replenish the NWF funds that were used previously," he said.

The budget law for this year envisages a deficit of 3.786 trillion rubles or 1.6% of GDP.

According to preliminary data from the Finance Ministry, the budget was executed with a deficit of 5.795 trillion rubles or 2.5% of GDP in January-August and a surplus of around 600 billion rubles in August.

Siluanov said at the start of June that the NWF could be replenished by around 1 trillion rubles in 2026 if the pricing situation remained the same as it was at that point.

The Finance Ministry did not initially plan for the replenishment of the NWF in 2026.