... emerging economies and the risk of conflict in the Middle East still hovering, officials are not too concerned in the short term. The International Monetary Fund's idea that Russia should halve its "nonoil budget deficit" of 10 percent of GDP to 5 percent of GDP sounds outright deflationary because that would mean a budget surplus of 5 percent of GDP. The other macroeconomic risk is capital flows. Quite surprisingly, Russia experienced a net capital outflow of $84 billion in 2011, according...

... necessity to restructure federal spending. The experts propose a model called "Plus 4, Minus 2," in which "important" expenditures are increased by 4 percent of gross domestic product and ineffective ones are reduced by 2 percent of GDP. This could result in about 700 billion rubles ($23 billion) being shifted annually, according to Vedomosti calculations. Those that get the status of "important" include: Transportation (plus 1.6 percent of GDP) Education (plus 1.3 percent...

... countries that would ensure balanced budgets. Specifically, they agreed to cap annual "structural" budget deficits at 0.5 percent of gross domestic product, with penalties imposed on countries whose total fiscal deficits exceeded 3 percent of GDP — a limit that would include both structural and cyclical deficits, thus effectively limiting cyclical deficits to 3 percent of GDP. Negotiators are now working out the details ahead of another meeting of EU government leaders at the end of...

... spending has increased at a rate of 25 percent on the back of unexpectedly high oil price-related revenues.  Since average inflation, using the gross domestic product deflator, was "only" about 13.3 percent in that period, with real GDP growth in the order of 4.5 percent, the share of government spending, including social benefits, has increased significantly to about 38 percent. Compared to Western countries such as France or Sweden, the ratio is still quite low and is not worrisome...

... particularly intense for oil- and metal-exporting countries," the report continued. "Falling commodity prices could cut into government revenues, causing government balances in oil-exporting countries to deteriorate by more than 4 percent of GDP." A sharp slowdown in global growth could result in a more than 20 percent drop in energy prices, the survey predicted. According to Finance Ministry data, for every $1 knocked off the oil price, Russia's budget revenue drops $1.7 billion. The...

... its 2012 prognosis for Russia to 3.3 percent, down from 4.1 percent in 2011. Brekk highlighted the need for Russia to reduce its oil budget deficit — the theoretical loss that would be incurred without oil revenues. Currently at 10 percent of GDP, an official target of 4.7 percent was suspended during the last financial crisis. Brekk said 4.7 percent could still be achieved by 2015. But the reduction of the non oil deficit will require fundamental public sector reform and budget cuts, he added...

... Merrill Lynch in Moscow, said Monday by phone. "The slowing world economy, including Europe, certainly has a negative effect on industrial output." Exports of raw materials such as energy and metals account for more than a quarter of Russian GDP, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, who earlier had estimated last year's growth at 4.2 percent, wrote in an article published Monday in Vedomosti. Higher energy prices benefited some of Russia's largest oil producers, including LUKoil, TNK-BP and Gazprom...

... product — should come from "the reorganization of ineffective organizations and programs." And that is likely how the federal government will fund salary increases this year, said Vladimir Tikhomirov, chief economist at Otkritie. Saying GDP was roughly 52 trillion rubles ($1.7 trillion) in 2011, Tikhomirov said an expenditure of 1.5 percent of yearly GDP would amount to 700 billion to 800 billion rubles. That's on top of the 1.8 percent of GDP already spent on health care, education...

... average, Russians have 22.4 square meters of living space versus 38 square meters in the EU. Although incomes tripled between 2004 and 2010, the development of mortgage financing in Russia has been slow. Outstanding housing loans are only 2.7 percent of GDP, compared with 52.4 percent in the European Union. State subsidized housing cannot only address poverty and be a shock absorber for the construction industry in times of crisis, but it can be a social engineering tool by fostering the growth of the...

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said ships carrying Russian tanks, missile launchers and anti-aerial systems purchased in recent months arrived Tuesday. (Bloomberg) Russia is targeting state debt of 17 percent of GDP in 2014, up from 10 percent at present, Deputy Finance Minister Sergei Storchak said Tuesday. (Bloomberg)

... Europe remains a question mark, economic growth and job creation, however fragile, are back in the United States. Moreover, even if China becomes the world's largest economy in, say, 2018, Americans would still be far richer than Chinese, with per capita GDP in the United States four times higher than in China. To be sure, income inequality and social injustice are a concomitant of capitalist culture throughout the West. But challengers like China and India are in no position to preach. Compared to Indian...

... from Russia to Tajikistan grew 33.6 percent to $2.96 billion last year, which amounted to 45.4 percent of gross domestic product," she said. The previous record in money transfers to Tajikistan was set in 2008 with $2.52 billion, or 49 percent of GDP, she said. According to the Tajik Migration Service, about 1.03 million Tajik labor migrants are permanently employed in Russia.  (MT)

... absolutely identical guarantees of receiving health care and of its quality." All Russian constitutions since 1936 list free health care as an inalienable right. Total government spending on health care was $17 billion in 2010, or 1.15 percent of GDP, and is expected to rise to $45 billion in 2015, Vladimir Zelensky, a department head at the Health and Social Development Ministry, said last year. 179742

... billion, last year from 39.5 percent in 2010. More than 36 percent was denominated in hryvna, with 33 percent in dollars and 27 percent in the IMF's Special Drawing Rights, the ministry said Monday. Excluding guarantees, debt declined to 27.2 percent of GDP, or $44.72 billion, from 29.6 percent, it said. Ukraine must repay 16.7 percent of that this year, 47 percent in 2013-2016 and the rest in 2017-2046, according to the ministry. 179743

... despite this, it is dangerous to be in the city, the doctors don't speak English and you can't get to the airport," Sharonov said, "it will be impossible to create an international financial center." He added that Moscow, which had a GDP of 11 trillion rubles in 2011 and a projected budget of 1.5 trillion rubles in 2012, was using MIFC as an "important benchmark for the quality of infrastructure, the quality of health care, the quality of education, tourism infrastructure, transport...

... Russia’s means and without recourse to new debt or an excessive dependence on a high oil price. Siluanov, who replaced long-serving Alexei Kudrin in September, told the Gaidar Forum in Moscow that he opposed an increase in budget spending of 2 percent of GDP, or more than a trillion rubles ($31.7 billion) a year, through 2020. “We have to look at our existing resources,” Siluanov said, Interfax reported. “And they are not small.” He singled out a “bloated” public sector...

... Elvira Nabiullina said. The domestic economy has a potential to grow 5 percent to 6 percent a year, but for this to happen the country needs a new model of growth based on a radical improvement of the business environment, Nabiullina said. The country's GDP increased 4.2 percent last year. "Improving the investment climate is what we need to launch … a new economic growth model, which will provide an investment inflow into key sectors," she said, Interfax reported. Shuvalov echoed this...

... sovereign-debt ratings of nine euro-zone countries, including France. Britain is likely to follow. To anyone not blinded by folly, the explanation for this mass downgrade is obvious. If you deliberately aim to shrink your gross domestic product, your debt-to-GDP ratio is bound to grow. The only way to cut your debt — other than by default — is to get your economy to grow. Fear of debt is rooted in human nature, so the extinction of it as a policy aim seems right to the average citizen. Everyone...

... export monopoly, is more compelling. Gurvich calculates that the gas sector's share of value added paid as tax, about 35 percent, is less than half the 80 percent level paid by the oil sector. Closing that gap would raise an additional 1.5 percent of GDP — about $25 billion dollars per annum — in tax. The discrepancy is even more obvious when looking at the taxes paid by the metals and mining sector, where the average tax take represents about 25 percent of profits. "Oil is overtaxed...

... knew just a decade ago. The point of immediate interest is what can we expect now? Russia, a debt-financed fiscal basket case of the 1990s, is now a poster child of debt abstinence and fiscal prudence with a budget surplus last year of 1 percent of GDP. Meanwhile, Russia's erstwhile creditors of that earlier period keep accumulating ever more debt in order to repay amounts falling due just to keep their economies from stagnating. The United States must repay $2.78 trillion of public debt this year...