Putin holds economic meeting on Russian budget changes

21/02/2009 17:43

MOSCOW, February 21 (RIA Novosti) - Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin held an economic meeting on Saturday to work on changes to the 2009 budget, the government press secretary said.

The meeting included First Deputy Prime Minster Viktor Zubkov and Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin, as well as several other senior officials.

Dmitry Peskov told journalists that the participants decided on areas of priority expenditure within the budget and where cuts could occur, as part of ongoing work to adjust the federal budget to lower-than-expected revenue due to the global economic crisis.

They also discussed incorporating into the budget anti-crisis expenditures and measures to support the financial system and the real sector of the economy, as well as ensuring payments to pensioners, welfare recipients and state employees.

The federal budget for 2009 originally set expenditures at 9.024 trillion rubles ($250 billion at current exchange rates) and revenues at slightly over 10 trillion rubles ($277 billion), but the drop in oil prices has cut the expected income dramatically.

The budget was based on an average oil price of $95 per barrel for the year, but is being recalculated based on a figure of $41 per barrel.

Kudrin, who is also a deputy prime minister, has said the 2009 budget deficit could be 6% of GDP.