Russian State Duma adopts federal budget for 2021–2023

The Russian State Duma has adopted the law on the country’s federal budget for 2021 and the planned budget for 2022–2023.

The budget’s basic parameters

• Revenues: 18.77 trillion rubles (approximately $248 billion) in 2021, 20.64 trillion rubles ($273 billion) in 2022, 22.26 trillion rubles ($294 billion) in 2023
• Spending: 21.52 trillion rubles (approximately $284 billion) in 2021, 21.88 trillion rubles in 2022 ($289 billion), and 23.67 trillion rubles ($313 billion) in 2023
• Deficit: 2.4 percent of GDP in 2021, 1 percent of GDP in 2022, and 1.1 percent of GDP in 2023
• Inflation: 3.7 percent in 2021, 4 percent in 2022, and 4 percent in 2023
• Price of Urals oil: $43.50 per barrel in 2021, $46.60 per barrel in 2022, and $47.50 per barrel in 2023
• US dollar exchange rate: 72.4 rubles in 2021, 73.1 rubles in 2022, 73.8 rubles in 2023

Government borrowing is set to be the main source of income for repaying the budget deficit, Interfax explains. The budget outlines plans to borrow 2.938 trillion rubles (approximately $39 billion) in 2021, 2.099 trillion rubles in 2022 ($28 billion), and 2.388 trillion rubles ($32 billion) in 2023.

The government expects the growth in revenues to come from a rise in world oil and gas prices, as well as through increased tax revenues in connection with the cancellation of some benefits and increasing the excise tax. 

In 2019 and 2020 Russia had surplus budgets (in other words, the budgets were compiled with the expectation that revenues would exceed expenditures). Prior to that, the federal budget ran a deficit for several years.