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Russia reports budget surplus for first four months of 2000 |
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May 4, 2000 MOSCOW, MAY 3 (AP) - In another sign of gradual economic recovery, Russia reported a budget surplus of 24 billion rubles (dlrs 850 million) for the first four months of this year, the Interfax news agency reported Wednesday.
Total government income was 311 billion rubles (dlrs 11.1 billion). The budget surplus was 1.4 percent of gross domestic product, First Deputy Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov told Interfax.
The primary budget surplus, or the surplus before paying interest and capital on government debt, amounted to 4.6 percent of gross domestic product during this period, Kasyanov said.
"We are fulfilling the budget better and are carrying out financial policy more strictly than earlier planned," Interfax quoted Kasyanov as saying.
High world oil prices earlier this year brought unplanned tax income into government coffers. The government has used the money to whittle away at debt and pay overdue wages and pensions.
The 2000 budget factors in more than dlrs 4 billion dollars in international loans, but higher tax collection may allow Russia to survive without foreign loans for the first time after years of economic decline, Russian officials have said.
On Wednesday, Kasyanov said the government was planning to make about dlrs 1 billion in loan payments in May, but that it wouldn't need to borrow money from the Central Bank through June.
Last year the government was criticized for borrowing around dlrs 4.5 billion from the Central Bank to pay off debts. The government says it hasn't borrowed at all from the Central Bank so far this year.
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