Federal Budget Execution for 2019: Key Research Insights

Sergey G. Belev – Head of Budget Policy Department of the Gaidar Institute; Senior Researcher of the Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration (Moscow, Russia). E-mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Ilya А. Sokolov – Head of Budget Policy Research Department of the Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration; Director of Institute of Macroeconomic Research, Russian Foreign Trade Academy of the Ministry for the Economic Development of the Russian Federation, Candidate of Economic Sciences (Moscow, Russia). Е-mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Tatyana V. Tischenko – Senior Researcher of the Gaidar Institute; Senior Researcher of the Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration, Candidate of Economic Sciences (Moscow, Russia). E-mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

The federal budget execution for 2019 compared to the previous year is marked by a reduction of the share of oil and gas revenues which shrank to 40.9% against 46.3% in 2018. At the same time, the total federal budget revenues have decreased insignificantly (down 0.2 pp of GDP) mainly due to considerable growth of proceeds from VAT (up 0.8 pp of GDP) on the back of VAT rate rise from 18 to 20%.

Increase of the federal budget expenditures against last year came to 0.6 pp. of GDP or around Rb 1.5 trillion in nominal terms due to the implementation of the national projects. Further growth of respective financing on the back of falling federal budget revenues raises the risk of its imbalance.

NWF (National Wealth Fund) markedly increased in 2019 (up to 7.1% of GDP against 3.9% of GDP a year earlier) resulting from crediting of accumulated in 2018 additional oil and gas funds to NWF accounts. Although liquidity available in NWF will markedly contract on the back of acquisition of the Sberbank shares, it will be sufficient for the implementation of all state obligations even amid unfavorable external economic conditions in medium-term perspective.

Key words: federal budget, taxes, revenues, oil and gas revenues, non-oil and gas revenues, expenditures, state foreign debt.