You think we have a budget deficit problem? Russia’s January deficit amounted to 1.8 trillion rubles, which is 14 times more than a year ago!

The federal budget of Russia in January 2023 was executed with a deficit of 1.776 trillion rubles, which is 14 times higher than its volume in January 2022, Interfax writes, citing preliminary data from the Ministry of Finance of the Russian Federation. For comparison, last January the budget was executed with a surplus of 125 billion rubles.

According to RBC, the budget deficit in January was a record for this month. The deficit amounted to 60% of plans for 2023 – the law on the budget for the whole of 2023 provides for a deficit in the amount of 2.93 trillion rubles.

According to the Ministry of Finance of the Russian Federation, revenues in annual terms decreased by 35%, to 1.36 trillion rubles, while expenses increased by 59%, to 3.12 trillion rubles.

Oil and gas revenues fell by 46% in January, which, according to the Ministry of Finance.

The Russian Ministry of Finance sold off gold from the National Wealth Fund – 3633 kilograms of gold in depersonalized form – to cover the budget deficit. For the same purpose, the Ministry of Finance sold 2.3 billion yuan. Income from transactions with gold and yuan amounted to 38.5 billion rubles.

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