Russian budget still holds reserve for optimizing spending - Siluanov
MOSCOW. Oct 1 (Interfax) - Russia's federal budget has reserves for optimizing expenditures that might be used in coming years, Finance Minister Anton Siluanov said during the 'Russia Calling!' forum organized by VTB Capital.
"In the first place, observing the budget rule, we moved to cut spending 5%, mainly on all procurement. We had proposals for going even further, but we left ourselves for later on a reserve, as it's called," Siluanov said during a talk on budget consolidation during the preparation of the draft budget for 2014-2016.
"We conducted budget consolidation, since we had to observe the budget rule. It is very good that we adopted it, because now there are clear guidelines for what we can and can't do [that are] understandable to all," the minister said.
During the course of budget consolidation, the Finance Ministry looked for resources within the budget, particularly in expenditures, "because new tasks and new challenges are realized by means of reformatting spending," Siluanov said.
