Russia's Reserve Fund expected to reach 1.7 trln rubles in Jan
MOSCOW. Oct 17 (Interfax) - Additional oil and gas revenues that will increase the Reserve Fund to about 1.7 trillion rubles will be transferred to the Fund in January, Deputy Finance Minister Tatyana Nesterenko told reporters.
The budget law specifies the amount of oil and gas revenues in excess of which funds received in the current year are transferred to form the Reserve Fund, she said.
"This formation will take place by February 1, that is, if at the end of the year the amount written into the budget is exceeded, and we expect that it will be exceeded by about 900 billion rubles, perhaps a little more, this will be deposited there [to the account of the Reserve Fund] by February 1," Nesterenko said.
Acting Finance Minister Anton Siluanov said earlier that the Reserve Fund is expected to total 1.673 trillion rubles at the end of 2011. The Fund stood at 823.87 billion rubles on October 1, 2011.
Nesterenko said that the past transfer of some additional oil and gas revenues to spending was "difficult and unnecessary from the point of view of operational procedures related to the execution of the budget."
"Having made certain withdrawals of oil and gas revenues, we have fixed this amount [in the budget] and above this all revenues go into surplus increase of balances, which we will deposit into the Reserve Fund in January," Nesterenko said.