More than half of the Russian regions, due to the coronavirus pandemic and the crisis caused by it, faced a shortage of money and a budget deficit, RBC writes, citing preliminary data from the Federal Treasury on the execution of the consolidated budget of Russian constituent entities at the beginning of 2021.
68 percent of the subjects (58 out of 85) faced the excess of regional budget expenditures over revenues. The aggregate deficit as of January 1 amounted to 762.2 billion rubles, or five percent of the total revenues of the regions.
The worst indicators were recorded in Kemerovo (the deficit is 21 percent of budget revenues) and Tyumen (20 percent) regions, as well as in Udmurtia (16 percent), Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous District (14 percent), Bashkiria and Arkhangelsk region ( 14 percent).
Economists interviewed by the publication named the main reason for the problems in specific regions is the drop in external demand for raw materials, internal effective demand, as well as a sharp decline in sales in the service sector. They call the most affected regions “affected areas”.
At the same time, the Ministry of Finance, in response to the publication’s request, noted that the available data should be interpreted as preliminary, since the regions will report to the Federal Treasury on budget execution after January 20.