In this section we will discuss the Russian national budget. We will analyze the budget with the help of several years’ worth of budget statistics. The annual budget in Russia is meant to be passed by the lower house of the Russian Parliament, known as the State Duma.
The State Duma is used to pass the Russian budget for any financial year. Unlike many other countries, the budget documents are subject to a debate in Russia, and have to be passed by the Parliament.
Previously, the members of Parliament were mainly used to debate the surplus issue. The stabilization fund was a problem as well, because Russian government did not want to save money for the future. This highly debatable issue was altered after the budget reform. In 2003, the budget projected the net revenue to be 2.69 trillion rubles and the expenditure was expected to reach up to 2.59 trillion rubles.
The budget allocated a huge amount of money for military expense, along with a raise in education and health care spending. Later in 2003, the next year’s budget was announced. The new 2004 budget focused more on increasing revenues.
The budget estimated that the federal revenue and government spending would reach up to 90 billion and 87 billion dollars respectively. The government expected to achieve a surplus worth more than 2.7 billion dollars during the 2004 financial year.
The government projected 83.4 billion rubles as surplus which would be used for the stabilization of funds. The growth in gross domestic product had been estimated at 5%, less than 0.9% from the previous year and inflation was anticipated at 8% to 10% during the 2004 fiscal year.
In the 2007 Russia budget, the revenue had been estimated at 6,965 billion rubles. The expected budget surplus was 1 trillion rubles and the oil price was set at 61 dollars per barrel. In the 2008 budget, the surplus was estimated at 47.2 billion dollars. The government set the oil price at 74 dollars per barrel.
In 2012, the Russian government expects the estimated revenue to vary between 10.6�11.789 trillion roubles with the expenses ranging between 12.2�12.658 trillion roubles. This implies that in 2012 budget deficit will comprise 1.5-2.7 percent of GDP for that period. This rate will reach 1.6 percent of the GDP in 2013 and be reduced to 0.7 percent in 2014 fiscal.