This year Russia’s budget is reaching its highest level of resistance to oil price swings in the past nine years, Russian Finance Minister Anton Siluanov told Parliament on Friday. We see that the so-called non-oil and gas budget deficit is going down, which demonstrates the resistance of the budget to various fluctuations related to international environment, Siluanov said, as quoted by Russia’s TASS news agency. The share of the non-oil and gas deficit is expected to fall by 0.6 percentage points to stand at 8.4 percent of GDP, the lowest in nine years, the minister said. The share of oil and gas revenues in 2017, on the other hand, is expected slightly down from previous years, at around 40 percent of all federal budget revenues, according to Siluanov. While the non-oil deficit is expected down, the value of the Russian ruble is up 11 percent year-on-year, RT quoted Siluanov […]