Government meeting

Agenda: draft federal budget, socioeconomic development forecast, draft of the guidelines for the single state monetary policy, draft budgets for state extra-budgetary funds in 2025 and the 2026-2027 planning period.

Mikhail Mishustin's opening remarks

Maxim Reshetnikov's report on the main parameters defining the socioeconomic development forecast for the next three years

Anton Siluanov's report on the three-year draft federal budget

Excerpts from the transcript:

Mikhail Mishustin: Good afternoon, colleagues.

The Government is about to complete its effort to draft the budget for the next three years. Today, we will review the corresponding draft law and the documents we will be submitting to the State Duma with it. These include the socioeconomic development forecast, the Guidelines for Budget, Tax, Customs and Tariff Policy, as well as the budgets of two extra-budgetary funds, and also several other instruments.

The Bank of Russia, i.e., Elvira Nabiullina, will present the Guidelines of the State Monetary Policy, which are designed to protect the rouble and ensure its stability.

We have been working on the country's main financial document amidst lingering imbalances in the global economy. Global trade in goods decreased by 2 percent since the beginning of this year due to tightened trade regulations as well as disrupted transport and logistics chains. In fact, 3,000 new restrictions were introduced last year alone.

Unsurprisingly, global GDP growth has been decelerating, according to the assessment by the International Monetary Fund. In the eurozone, this indicator may well fail to exceed 1 percent, which is a sign of economic stagnation for these countries.

In this environment, the Russian economy has come under immense pressure. Unfriendly countries keep expanding their packages of sanctions and restrictions. There are also new logistics, technological and financial challenges we face.

Nevertheless, we have been able to counter and offset them under the President's leadership and by ensuring that the Government and the Bank of Russia coordinate their efforts. Moreover, we have been supporting our citizens, businesses and development projects to develop a foundation for our future growth.

GDP statistics illustrate this point. According to the preliminary estimates by the Ministry of Economic Development, this measure increased by 4.4 percent in the first seven months of the year, a more than twofold increase as compared to last year's performance.

The real economy has been serving as the key growth driver, primarily the processing sector whose output surged 8.6 percent in January-July. There is also positive momentum in construction and agriculture.

Russian companies have been proactive in taking over the niches vacated by those who were pressured by their governments to leave Russia. By offering state support measures as part of an effort to create new logistics routes, we have created a favourable business environment across the country. In the first six months, fixed capital investment increased by almost 11 percent, which leads us to expect that many things will change for the better in terms of the way we live, as well as for various economic sectors.

This, in turn, has a bearing on the labour market, with unemployment declining to a historic low of 2.4 percent in June 2024.

Obviously, we took into consideration all these trends when drafting the law on the three-year budget based on the basic national development scenario as prepared by the Ministry of Economic Development.

While working on the federal budget, we analysed current challenges and allocated the resources necessary to implement new national projects and achieve the national development goals set by the President. The Government has held a series of strategic sessions on this matter.

It is equally essential to maintain a balanced budget. I believe that we have achieved the optimal ratio of expenditures and revenues in the current conditions. On the one hand, this budget guarantees the fulfilment of all social obligations, and on the other hand, we will be able to provide significant support to the industries that are essential for the economy, to priority sectors such as machine tool manufacturing, robotics, microelectronics, and a few others.

Finance Minister Anton Siluanov will tell us more about the figures later. I will focus on just a few key ones.

Federal revenues are projected to grow to 40.296 trillion roubles in 2025, almost 12 percent more than this year. Moreover, the proportion of non-oil and gas revenues will increase to 73 percent.

This growth will give us additional resources to fund social spending, government programmes, and projects. Total federal spending will grow to 41.469 trillion roubles next year.

A total of 24 trillion roubles has been allocated for state programmes to be implemented next year. We will approve these programmes before submitting them to the State Duma along with the federal budget.

A significant share of our resources has been allocated for the implementation of national projects, which the Government has developed in response to the President's instruction.

The federal budget is expected to run a deficit for the next three years. In 2025, it will be at the level of 0.5 percent of GDP.

Today, we will also consider the budgets of state extra-budgetary funds to be tapped to fulfil the government' social protection commitments. We will provide funding for medicine, including high-tech medical care provided by federal healthcare centres. We will also continue paying the benefits to medical workers.

The expenditures of the Pension and Social Insurance Fund will be increased in order to continue to pay pensions, subsidies, sick leave, pregnancy and maternity benefits, and benefits for families with children. Taking care of these categories is always a priority.

The fund's budget includes allocations for the maternity capital programme, and the unified child benefit programme for low-income parents who need social support.

Expenditures have been planned for the indexation of insurance pensions for all pensioners including working retirees, a measure to be implemented at the President's instruction.

Also, in accordance with the presidential executive order, we need to ensure faster growth of the minimum wage, which has to reach 35,000 roubles by 2030.

On January 1, 2025, the minimum wage will be increased by more than 16.5 percent to 22,440 roubles. This will help increase the wages of about 4 million workers.

Let's move on to the discussion.

Minister of Economic Development Maxim Reshetnikov will report on the socioeconomic development forecast for the next three years.

Finance Minister Anton Siluanov will speak about the budget.

Mr Reshetnikov, go ahead, please.

More to be posted soon…

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