Business News
Putin: Russian budget deficit will be less than 5.3 per cent feared
Oct 18, 2010, 15:35 GMT
Moscow - Russia's budget deficit will be significantly lower than expected this year thanks to rising oil prices, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said Monday, without giving any figures.
A deficit of 5.3 per cent of gross domestic product (GDP) had been predicted. Last year's deficit was 5.9 per cent of GDP.
The Ministry of Economic Development has predicted a deficit of up to 5 per cent.
Putin had previously expected a larger budget deficit due to higher losses in profits from commodities sales, according to the news agency Interfax.
The government is hoping to further reduce the budget deficit to around 3 per cent in 2011 through the sales of state-owned businesses, including the country's biggest airline Aeroflot and the financial institution Sberbank.
Until now, experts had reckoned with a deficit of 3.6 per cent for that year.
Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin is not predicting a return to economic growth until 2013.
'Our goal is to reach a rate of GDP growth of around 7 to 8 per cent in the next three to four years,' he said recently.
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