How to get money on anti-crisis plan? What is the state of Affairs in the economy? In an interview with “Vesti on Saturday” said Minister of Finance Anton Siluanov.
– Mr Siluanov, what do you think is happening in our economy? Many officials, including from the economic bloc, say that the peak of the crisis passed. Some economists, on the contrary, they say that we have now is stagflation, a prolonged stagnation and there are still difficult times.
– Our economy has adapted to the new conditions, structural changes took place. Just a couple of years ago we dominated the export-oriented raw materials industries, now – on the contrary, industries that produce products with a high level of added value. These sectors began to prevail. And profits for last year rose more than 20%. This has not happened in recent years. This, incidentally, affected the revenues. By the end of the year, according to our estimates, the economy will come to a positive growth rate. However, the budget still remains to be done. Without adjustment of the budget under the new realities we will not be able to get to the level of investment economic development, which we’re all talking. Some say: let’s just more, you don’t look at the budget deficit, let’s more than the cost of investment on infrastructure in the budget will lay loosen and thus the economy. What next? Breaking up the budget deficit, we will face all the problems about which we speak. And in the middle the long term, this may not be such a policy.
– If to speak about the important figures for the budget today, it is oil and the ruble. What should be the price of oil that the budget was balanced?
– The price of oil, we plan, based on 40 dollars per barrel. For the next three years.
– And the ruble?
– On this basis, we believe the ruble. The balance that has developed, will not seriously change in terms of the orientations in oil prices, which we estimate.
Another global factor that affects the economy — the Western, the factor of sanctions. How big, in your opinion, the influence of the West on our economy?
– Told the Americans that in terms of sanctions our economy, “tear”. Now these sayings have not. Because they see that inflation has stabilized, foreign exchange reserves are rising, capital outflows dropped sharply. And it is therefore evident that those effects, which our colleagues abroad expect to achieve from the imposition of sanctions, did not work. They worked in the first place, I guess, that Western entrepreneurs have lost part of their income from reinvestirovanie in Russia. Investments in Russia have always been profitable and reliable.
– Already have an understanding of what funds will be dofinansirovaniya crisis management plan? Very much written in the media that lacks the order of 100 billion rubles. Is that so?
– On the primary part means. For the second part we were counting on the additional revenue. If additional revenues will be visible in the first half of the year, of course, we can consider the extension of crisis support measures for individual categories of expenditure.
What amount is it?
– More than 100 billion rubles.
– I would like to dwell on our budget, on its balance. Will it be possible to meet the 3% of GDP?
– Yes, it is a difficult task. We took the decision to increase the dividend from our state-owned companies with 25 to 50%. This is a serious decision. From the point of view of income, we together with the Russian alcohol regulation Department in improving the collection of excise taxes on alcohol. The last two years have flourished, the illegal sale without excise stamps, in black. Even plants in black produced alcohol products. Since the beginning of the year, the dynamics of excise duties is not only not decreased, rather increased.
– And by the end of the year many expect to receive in the budget?
– We expect that income growth will be not less than 10%.
