7 Jun 2023 10:09

Russian federal budget deficit 3.4 trillion rubles for 5M, unchanged in past month

MOSCOW. June 7 (Interfax) - Russia's federal budget deficit was 3.411 trillion rubles for January-May 2023, according to preliminary data from the Finance Ministry.

The deficit hardly changed over the past month - the ministry estimated it at 3.424 trillion rubles for January-April.

The planned deficit for the year is 2.9 trillion rubles.

Budget revenues dropped 19% year-on-year to 9.818 trillion rubles in the five months. The Finance Ministry earlier estimated revenues in the first four months of 2023 at 7.782 trillion rubles so, based on this, revenues totaled 2 trillion rubles in May.

Non-oil and gas revenues rose 9% year-on-year to 6.965 trillion rubles in the five months after growing by 5% in the first four months. The ministry attributed this to the normalization of the dynamic of receipts for the federal budget's largest non-oil and gas revenues (turnover taxes, profit tax) after a drop in January. The ministry also noted that in general the amount and trajectory of receipts for these tax revenues "show a certain higher dynamic than what was factored in when drawing up the law on the budget."

Value-added tax revenues rose 16.2% year-on-year to 4.368 trillion rubles in the five months after growing by 11% the four months, while profit tax revenue fell 15% to 688 billion rubles after dropping 19.4% in the four month.

Oil and gas revenues plunged 50% to 2.853 trillion rubles in the five months, after dropping 52% to 2.282 trillion rubles in the four months.

Spending, meanwhile, jumped 27% year-on-year to 13.229 trillion rubles in the five months. Based on the spending figure of 11.206 trillion rubles for the first four months, spending fell to 2.023 trillion rubles in May from 3.129 trillion rubles in April and 2.333 trillion rubles in March. The ministry said the monthly dynamic of expenditure execution is gradually reaching a normal level following accelerated financing of certain contract expenses in January-February.

The budget law targets federal budget revenues of 26.130 trillion rubles, spending of 29.056 trillion rubles and a deficit of 2.925 trillion rubles for 2023.

Revised figures showed that the budget deficit was 2.086 trillion rubles in the first quarter of 2023, 314 billion rubles less than the preliminary estimate of 2.4 trillion rubles. Spending and revenue figures for the quarter have been revised to 7.765 trillion rubles and 5.679 trillion rubles, respectively, from 8.077 trillion rubles and 5.677 trillion rubles.