Russia promised tight curbs on 1994 spending Thursday but ministers are still wrangling over how much to spend and economists said Finance Ministry plans would face stiff parliamentary tests.


A draft budget, approved in principle at a closed-door government meeting, envisages a 1994 deficit of 61.5 trillion rubles ($36 billion), about 10.2 percent of gross domestic product. The 1993 gap was 10.5 percent.


Central Bank loans would finance about 60 percent of the gap. Details from the document were made available to Reuters.


"I think it is a tight budget and a courageous budget and if it is implemented as proposed, it would do a lot to reduce the inflation rate," said one Western economist.


"But it still has to get through parliament. Virtually every parliament puts pressure on its government to spend more and I cannot see Russia being an exception to this."


Miners, industrial workers and farmers are all crying out for extra cash. The government is under pressure to meet these demands to avert widescale strikes in key sectors where wage payments have been delayed frequently.


Itar-Tass quoted Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin as saying that Russia could not increase expenditure beyond planned levels without facing catastrophe.


But several ministers objected to the plans. Farm Minister Viktor Khlystun said cash needed by the agricultural sector was not included and Labor Minister Gennady Melikyan said the budget "bears no relation to real economic policies." The budget, which still has to be debated by parliament, envisages spending of 182.20 trillion rubles and income of 120.70 trillion rubles.


But economists said the estimates for government income looked optimistic. "Even the finance minister has said income is unlikely to be more than 100 trillion rubles," one said.


High 1993 inflation of up to 20 percent a month and a steep fall in the value of the ruble in 1993 mean it is difficult to draw meaningful comparisons with figures from previous years.


Debate on Russia's 1994 budget plans had been postponed repeatedly after key ministers fell ill and amid concern on how much to spend on key sectors like agriculture. A previous budget draft envisaged a deficit of 17 percent of GDP.


One analyst said that, in a high-inflation country like Russia, the budget deficit as a proportion of GDP was less important than the amount to be financed by Central Bank loans."The amount Russia plans to finance this way is not unreasonable," he said.


The latest draft assumed the ruble would weaken to 3,500 or 4,000 to the dollar by the end of 1994 from around 1,700 now. It is already trading at record lows against the dollar.


The budget puts monthly inflation at an average 11 or 12 percent this year, down from 22 in January and 14 to 16 percent in February. A second economist said this could be optimistic.


"There is no doubting the reformist credentials of new Finance Minister Sergei Dubinin but there is some doubt about whether he has the weight to make the figures stick," he said.


Dubinin replaced Boris Fyodorov in January. Fyodorov, who warned that Russia was lurching toward hyperinflation, had said the ruble could fall to 12,000 to the dollar this year.


The budget also said Russia would spend 11.4 trillion rubles in servicing and repaying foreign debts.


Russia, which owes Western creditors about $80 billion, has been seeking extra time to repay its debts. It won a 1993 rescheduling deal with the Paris Club of creditor states and hopes for agreement on 1994 repayments soon both with the Paris Club and with creditor banks.


Central Bank Chairman Viktor Gerashchenko, quoted by RIA news agency, said inflation was likely to quicken to around 20 percent in March on seasonal payments for farming.


He forecast annual inflation down sharply to 200 percent by the end of 1994 from around 1,000 percent in 1993. Russia has promised to cut monthly inflation to 7 to 9 percent by the end of this year.


Yeltsin's new economic adviser, Alexander Livshits, told the government Wednesday it should aim to reduce inflation to 3 to 5 percent monthly.