RUSSIA MAY CUT DOWN THE SPENDING ON THE CRIMEA

The Ministry of Finance proposed to reduce allocations for the Crimea and Sevastopol within the budget of the Russian Federation for 2021-2022. In particular, the spending on the state program "Social and economic development of the Republic of Crimea and the city of Sevastopol" may be cut down.

According to the initiative, 8.5 billion rubles less might be spent on the Crimea in 2021, and 9.1 billion rubles less in 2022. As a result, the republic may receive 76.1 billion rubles in 2021, and 82.2 billion rubles in 2022.

The authors of the methodology believe that by means of this, it will be possible to balance the state budget by 10%. Moreover, the cuts are associated with the termination of the development program.

We should recall that for the moment, the Ministry of Finance is trying to cut the budget spending by 10% amid a pandemic and a collapse in the oil prices. Among other proposals, there is a reduction in spending on the State Duma and the Federation Council, and the Ministry also proposed to abandon the indexation of the officials' salaries and carrying out a wage reform after 2023.