Russian MinFin adjusts revenue for 2016 budget to 13.74 trln rubles, spending to 16.1 trln rubles

MOSCOW. Oct 22 (Interfax) – The Russian Finance Ministry has increased the parameters for the revenue and spending of the 2016 federal budget to 13.738 trillion rubles and 16.098 trillion rubles, respectively, Russian Finance Minister Anton Siluanov told journalists.

“Revenue is 13.7385 trillion and spending is 16.0987 trillion rubles,” he said.

Earlier the draft budget envisaged revenue of 13.57 trillion rubles and spending at 15.94 trillion rubles.

In other words, the deficit remains unchanged at 2.360 trillion rubles or 3% of GDP.

The increase in budget revenue is due to the decision to leave the oil export duty percentage unchanged at 42% throughout all of 2016, First Deputy Prime Minister Igor Shuvalov said.

In many cases, additional revenue was assigned to spending items under some of the programs that had been cut previously.