The budget went into an acceptable minus - Newspaper Kommersant No. 3 (7448) dated 01/11/2023

The budget went into an acceptable minus - Newspaper Kommersant No. 3 (7448) dated 01/11/2023



The White House presented on Tuesday, January 10, the first results of the execution of the federal budget for 2022 - it closed with a deficit of 2.3% of GDP, or 3.3 trillion rubles. Thanks to the sharp increase in the price of oil and gas, state treasury revenues last year increased by 2.6 trillion rubles compared to the budget law adopted before the military operation. At the same time, expenses soared almost three times higher - by 7.4 trillion rubles. to the original plan. In the face of uncertainty and the expansion of sanctions, the government in 2022 managed the budget virtually manually, imposing “one-time” taxes, suspending the budget rule, spending the NWF, and enacting costly packages of measures to support the population and businesses.

At a meeting on January 10, the government summed up the first results of the implementation of the federal budget for 2022.

According to Finance Minister Anton Siluanov, the deficit amounted to 2.3% of GDP, or 3.3 trillion rubles. (According to the results of 11 months, the budget was still in surplus).

Thus, the "hole" in the state treasury turned out to be somewhat larger than the last, December expectations: the Ministry of Finance then predicted it at the level of up to 2% of GDP. Before that, in autumn, it was a deficit of 0.9% of GDP.

Recall that initially, in the law on the budget-2022, adopted less than three months before the start of the Russian military operation in Ukraine, at the beginning of December 2021, figures with a different sign appeared. Then the authorities expected a surplus of 1% of GDP. However, the Russian GDP-2022 itself, according to last year's layouts, should have grown by 3%. As a result, now we are talking about a fall in the economy in 2022 by 2.5–2.9% (the first accurate estimate will appear in mid-February).

Despite the macroeconomic and geopolitical storms of the first year of the military operation, the 2022 budget, in the course of its implementation, unlike in previous years, was never corrected by the State Duma - only the forecast estimates of income and the budget breakdown of expenditures changed. Firstly, the broad budgetary powers of the White House made it possible to do without legislative amendments, and secondly, it would be rather pointless to change the norms of the law in the face of external and internal uncertainty, as well as constantly changing sanctions.

So, a comparison of the initial figures preserved in the law with the final ones makes it possible to indirectly assess the “SVO effect” for the budget (more significant factors that influenced state finances and the economy of the Russian Federation as a whole are not found).

With a plan of 25.02 trillion rubles. As a result, revenues amounted to 27.77 trillion rubles. (plus 2.57 trillion rubles). Expenses, on the other hand, grew three times more significantly - with the planned 23.69 trillion rubles. they increased to 31.11 trillion rubles. (this is plus 7.42 trillion rubles). It is clear that in the conditions of 2022, the normalization of the budget policy previously desired by the Ministry of Finance, which implies cost containment, was out of the question (it was postponed until 2025). So, compared to 2021, spending eventually grew by 6.35 trillion rubles at once.

The operation of the budget rule in 2022, we recall, was suspended, and additional oil and gas revenues were no longer accumulated in the National Welfare Fund (NWF), as before, but were mainly used for current needs. To finance the deficit, starting from October, the NWF itself had to be spent. To do this, part of the currency frozen due to sanctions on the accounts of the Ministry of Finance with the Central Bank (euro, pounds and yen) was conditionally converted into rubles, that is, ruble emission was actually made. Anton Siluanov previously spoke about his intention to spend 2 trillion rubles from the NWF in 2022. The second source of covering the deficit was the attraction of funds from the financial market through the placement of government securities, which was activated by the Ministry of Finance towards the end of the year. In December alone, they were placed for 1.44 trillion rubles.

It is no longer possible to list exactly what the additional spending of 7.42 trillion rubles was spent on, which is closed to the public this year.

Recall that since May 2022, the Ministry of Finance has been publishing data on budget execution in a truncated form - sections on the structure of expenditures, including military ones, on sources of financing the deficit, as well as figures on the state of the state treasury in the past month, have disappeared from the reporting. The department then explained the “closure” of the budget with the intention to reduce the risks of introducing new sanctions.

It is known, however, that the compensation in the amount of 770 billion rubles, issued to state non-budgetary funds, affected the growth of expenses. for the deferral of payment of insurance premiums granted to the business last year. Anton Siluanov explained on Tuesday that without these funds, which will return to the budget in 2023, the 2022 deficit would have dropped to 1.8% of GDP. The shift to the left of part of the planned expenditures for 2023, as well as the financing of numerous support packages adopted by the government during the year, also contributed to the increase in spending. On Tuesday, Anton Siluanov recalled the most social of them. These are indexation by 10% of pensions for working pensioners, the subsistence minimum and the minimum wage (500 billion rubles were allocated for this), financing a new payment for children from 8 to 16 years old (more than 400 billion rubles), as well as subsidizing loans for businesses and preferential mortgages.

As for the revenue part of the budget, in 2022 it was primarily saved by oil and gas revenues and Gazprom.

The average price of Russian grade Urals oil in 2022 was $76.09 per barrel, and this result is the best for the budget and oil companies over the past eight years. In 2021, Russian oil cost $69 per barrel. Data on such revenues for 12 months is not yet available, but it is known that in January-November, due to increased prices for energy resources, oil and gas revenues were in a significant plus compared to last year, amounting to 10.66 trillion rubles. (30% more than in January-November 2021). At the same time, in October-December, Gazprom paid an additional MET for a total of 1.244 trillion rubles in three installments. (see "Kommersant" dated November 14). The corporation gave this money to the budget instead of paying dividends to shareholders for 2021.

The situation with non-oil and gas revenues in 2022 looked worse: according to the results of 11 months, it was minus 1% compared to the same period last year. At the same time, Gazprom's money was also involved here: 600 billion rubles were credited to non-oil and gas revenues. corporation's dividend for the first half of this year. Anton Siluanov on Tuesday, in addition to the effect of oil and gas revenues, singled out an increase in VAT as a result of a recovery in demand and business activity in the second half of last year.

Vadim Visloguzov, Evgenia Kryuchkova



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