The 2009 budget will most likely have no surplus, and even a 1-percent budget deficit is quite possible, Russia's Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin stated today.
He noted that next year the global financial crisis will hit its climax. Alongside other effects of the crisis, he named a fall-off in demand for Russian grain, as well as for the output of the oil and gas, car making, metals and chemical industries. "We have to ride out 2009," Kudrin observed adding that 2010 is expected to see a global economic turnaround. |
