Falling oil prices can undermine Russia’s reserve plans

PanARMENIAN.Net - Falling oil prices are threatening to undermine Russia's plans to set aside 800 billion rubles ($24 billion) for its anti-crisis mechanism this year, the country's finance minister said on Saturday, June 23.

"We intended that this money go toward increasing the Reserve Fund, but as oil prices are going down, this is not likely to happen," Anton Siluanov told reporters in St. Petersburg, according to RIA Novosti.

The federal budget deficit will reach 1.5 percent of GPD by the end of the year, he added.

Russia will introduce "anti-crisis measures" if oil fall prices drop below $80 a barrel, Siluanov told a St. Petersburg forum on Thursday.

Siluanov had previously told the Financial Times that Russia would earmark 500 billion rubles ($16 billion) for next year "for the direct financing of anti-crisis measures."