Fairy tales are different. There are those that are told at night. There are fairy tales-documents. For example, the audit tales known for "Dead souls". There are also documents that expose fairy tales. The Ministry of Finance and the Central Bank, for example, summed up the preliminary results of the execution of the Federal budget in 2019. These documents are essentially a mirror of the economic policy being pursued. You look in and read the exposed fairy tales.
The first fairy tale: "there is no Money, but you hold on." We should start with the main figure published by the Ministry of Finance: the surplus of the Russian Federal budget for 2019, once again, according to preliminary estimates, amounted to 1.8% of GDP, or 1.968 trillion rubles. Almost 2 trillion rubles were withdrawn by tax and customs officials from the economy and not spent. After that, all the government's excuses about the lack of funds pale and lose their credibility. This, of course, does not mean that 2 trillion could be spent on anything at all, but it was obviously worth providing for their rational and as far as possible effective use. In any case, the budget surplus exceeded the total funding plan for all Russian national projects.
The second fairy tale: the last presidential Message puts the government in a very difficult position, because it is necessary to find additional resources that were not previously provided for new state, especially social spending.
Here are the numbers: according to the boldest estimates, the Message is "worth" the additional costs of 500 billion rubles in 2020 (more often called the figure of 450 billion rubles). And the Federal budget surplus in 2019 amounted to almost 2 trillion rubles, 4 times more! Instead of saving money "in the refrigerator," it could have been spent in such a way as to launch a decisive attack on Russian poverty last year. Then the picture would have been more cheerful with consumer demand, and economic growth could have revived.
Everything was in the hands of the government. Except for one thing-the very political will that for some reason only one person can show in Russia. And the government sits and "fixes the Primus". Now, however, no longer sits.
Fairy tale three: the Russian budget, like all economic policy, is aimed at ensuring the development of the economy and improving the lives of Russian citizens. The real budget says something completely different. The state in Russia first of all takes care of itself. Russian politics, speaking in a high calm, is not human-centric, but budget-centric. Ultimately, it serves the interests of the state. And the citizen and the state are not the same at all.
Tale four: Russia is getting off the oil needle. There is evidence that the ruble exchange rate is growing independent of the oil market. But there are others. For example, in 2019, a barrel of Brent rose by 4.13%, and the Russian currency strengthened against the dollar by 4.14%, according to Refinitiv analysts. There are also surprising figures from the Central Bank's report: Russian non-oil revenues did not increase in 2019. Natalia Orlova, chief economist at Alfa Bank, points out that as they were $ 180 billion in 2019, they were estimated at $181 billion in 2018. Where is the replacement for oil revenues? And without it, all the talk about healing the Russian economy from oil dependence remains just talk.
Fairy tale five: Russia has made significant progress in import substitution. There are successes, but, first, they are shaky, and secondly, they are not based on the competitiveness of domestic substitution for imports. Here are the statistics of the Central Bank: if in the first half of 2019, imports declined, in the second half of the year, it took revenge. In the last quarter alone, imports grew at an annual rate of 10%. What does this mean? Imports are strongly influenced not so much by competition with Russian producers as by the dynamics of the ruble exchange rate and the General state of demand.
Fairy tale six: Russian exports have been and remain a reliable support for both economic growth and the ruble. The main trend of changes in the Russian balance of payments is a reduction, not an increase, in the active balance of current operations. And from here two conclusions follow. First — both the government and the Central Bank are interested in weakening the ruble. The second is that funds from the national welfare Fund, when it reaches the threshold of 7% of GDP, and the surplus can be invested (the process will be launched by the middle of the year), will go primarily to support infrastructure projects (as instructed by the President), export loans and other forms of support for Russian exports. In addition to the fact that this will develop exports and, perhaps, its structure, this type of investment, according to experts of the Higher school of Economics, promises the highest return in the form of GDP growth.
Fairy tale seven: with the financing of national projects put in order. The Ministry of Finance reported that the plan for financing national projects in 2019 was fulfilled by 91.4%. In total, 1.75 trillion rubles were budgeted for the implementation of activities under national projects last year, while underfunding amounts to 150 billion rubles. Everything is relatively safe. But here are a few more numbers. At the end of September, only 52% of the Federal budget funds were spent within the framework of national projects. At the beginning of December, the execution rate was 73%. This means that at the end of December, funding for national projects was held in the mode of outright assault. In General, the situation with the financing of national projects is far from the one that
ensures their effective implementation.
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