AFP, Moscow :
The economy minister of recession-hit Russia on Thursday pledged nearly $10 billion to tackle the country’s financial crisis, as the low oil price weighs heavily on growth.
Alexei Ulyukayev earmarked 750 billion rubles (nine billion euros, $9.8 billion) in anti-crisis measures, of which 310 billion rubles are loans to regional authorities already allocated in the 2016 budget.
Russia’s energy-reliant economy shrank by 3.7 percent in 2015 and is set to continue suffering in the current year, weighed down by systemic problems that have been exacerbated by Western sanctions over Ukraine and the low price of oil.
President Vladimir Putin has ordered that the budget deficit should stay within three percent of gross domestic product.
However the current budget is calculated with oil at $50 a barrel and balancing the books will be a tall order unless the price climbs back to prior levels.
The oil price is currently hovering around $30 per barrel. It was not clear from Ulyukayev’s remarks where the government plans to draw the anti-crisis money from.
The economy minister of recession-hit Russia on Thursday pledged nearly $10 billion to tackle the country’s financial crisis, as the low oil price weighs heavily on growth.
Alexei Ulyukayev earmarked 750 billion rubles (nine billion euros, $9.8 billion) in anti-crisis measures, of which 310 billion rubles are loans to regional authorities already allocated in the 2016 budget.
Russia’s energy-reliant economy shrank by 3.7 percent in 2015 and is set to continue suffering in the current year, weighed down by systemic problems that have been exacerbated by Western sanctions over Ukraine and the low price of oil.
President Vladimir Putin has ordered that the budget deficit should stay within three percent of gross domestic product.
However the current budget is calculated with oil at $50 a barrel and balancing the books will be a tall order unless the price climbs back to prior levels.
The oil price is currently hovering around $30 per barrel. It was not clear from Ulyukayev’s remarks where the government plans to draw the anti-crisis money from.
