MOSCOW, March 21 (RIA Novosti) - Federal budget revenue will total 6,673 billion rubles (about $256.3 billion at the current exchange rate) or 19.1% of Russia's GDP in 2008, the finance minister said Wednesday.
Federal budget expenditure will be 6,500 billion rubles (about $249.6 billion) or 18.6% of GDP and the federal budget surplus will stand at 173 billion rubles (about $6.6 billion) or 0.5% of GDP in 2008, Alexei Kudrin told a session of the Finance Ministry.
Kudrin said all the figures for the updated draft of the federal budget for 2008-2010 had been approved last night.
According to the minister, federal budget revenue is expected to be 7,421 billion rubles (about $284.9 billion) or 18.8% of GDP and expenditure 7,361 billion rubles (about $282.6 billion) in 2009 while a federal budget surplus that year will decline compared with 2008 to 0.2% of GDP.
Kudrin said the draft three-year budget sets aside expenditure to an amount of 2.5% of GDP in 2009 and 5% of GDP in 2010.
"The expenditure is taboo; neither the government nor the State Duma [lower house of Russia's parliament] can assign it," Kudrin said.
The finance minister said the expenditure was set aside to index wages and finance additional programs.
