From January to September 2022, the Ministry of Finance reduced the volume of transfers to 18 regions of Russia compared to the same period last year. This is reported in the analytical commentary of the ACRA rating agency, published on website the 25th of October.
It is clarified that the agency in the analysis relied on data from the Unified Portal of the Russian Budget System.
Most of all payments were reduced in the Kaliningrad and Magadan regions, in Moscow and St. Petersburg.
As reported in the commentary, the decrease in transfers for the Kaliningrad region is due to a decrease in support for manufacturers using imported components.
“Such support, which in form was considered a different intergovernmental transfer, in fact was more of a subvention that reflects obligations to support local businesses, does not involve the regional budget and does not directly affect social spending or the ability of the entity to fulfill its obligations,” the statement says. publications.
At the same time, it is noted that for the Magadan Region, a comparable drop in transfers, along with a decrease in NNI and an increase in spending, may complicate budget execution in 2022.
“Moscow and St. Petersburg, which also recorded a noticeable reduction in gratuitous receipts, do not depend on them to any significant extent,” analysts say.
At the same time, according to the commentary, the total gratuitous receipts over the nine months increased by 12% – the volume of subsidies remained almost unchanged, and targeted subsidies increased significantly. At the same time, the dynamics of subventions turned out to be worse than last year.
Georgy Ostapkovich, director of the Center for Market Research at the Institute for Statistical Research and Economics of Knowledge at the National Research University Higher School of Economics, explained in an interview with Izvestia that budget transfers go to the development of the economy, infrastructure and other programs that are provided for in the budget and provided for a particular region. If budget financing is reduced, then transfers to these indicators and structures are reduced.
“I don’t see anything critical yet, because the reduction is minimal so far. Maybe at the end of the year they will add something. But so far the tax base does not allow these regions. What are regional taxes? This is primarily income tax. This means that their real wages have fallen. They do not collect this tax. Regional tax – tax on the profit of the enterprise. This means that enterprises have become less profitable and the total taxable base is naturally falling,” he explained.
How resources will be redistributed in the regions is the task of governors and local departments of the Ministry of Finance, the economist noted. In his opinion, they will try to keep social indicators intact. But in terms of business investment, investment in the economy, regions that have budget cuts may suffer.
On September 29, Finance Minister Anton Siluanov said that the federal budget in 2022 could be executed with a deficit of more than 0.9% of GDP, which the Finance Ministry had expected. He also noted that it is planned to replenish the resources of the budget of the Russian Federation by withdrawing part of the windfall profits of exporters.
On October 20, the Ministry of Finance reported that the government approved an order to allocate 1 trillion rubles from the National Welfare Fund to finance federal budget expenditures.
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