According to the Russian Finance Ministry, if this year average oil price will drop from $100 to $50.00 per barrel, Russia could lose about 2.1 trillion rubles ($30 billion at the current exchange rate) or 14% of planned incomes of the budget, Ilya Trunin, Director of the Russian Finance Ministry’s Department of Fiscal and Customs Policy, told RBC.
“With more serious price decline to $40.00 per barrel in average during a year, the budget’s incomes could reduce to 3.1 trillion rubles, which makes 21% of planned income of the federal budget,” he said. He believes that peculiarity of the modern Russian tax system significantly mitigates negative influence of price decline for this field.
According to the forecast of the Development Centre submitted at the end of December 2014, with oil price of $50.00 Russian economy will decline by 6.5% in 2015. Investments will decrease by 21.8%, turnover of retail trade by 9.6% and net outflow of capital will total $135 billion. Inflation rate will constitute 15%.