MOSCOW, Sept. 13 (Xinhua) -- Russia's budget deficit in the first half of 2017 was reduced to 1 percent of its gross domestic product (GDP) and amounted to 400 billion rubles (6.94 billion U.S. dollars), Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said Wednesday.
The latest budget deficit sees a considerable decrease from the 3.6 percent of GDP in the same period last year, Medvedev said at a cabinet meeting on the execution of the federal budget of 2017.
In the first six months of this year, the budget revenues grew by approximately 21.5 percent year-on-year, exceeding 7 trillion rubles (121 billion dollars), while the expenditure in the same period amounted to 7.5 trillion rubles (130 billion dollars), the prime minister said.
He noted that "the structure of the revenues is changing," with more money coming from taxes and fees than from selling oil and gas.
According to the prime minister, the GDP volume in the first half of 2017 increased by 1.7 percent, which is about 42 trillion rubles (727 billion dollars) in monetary terms.
"We expect that in the second half of this year the growth of gross domestic product will continue," he said.
Medvedev said that currently the Russian government is running 33 federal target programs (FTPs), with the total amount of financing at the expense of the federal budget (the open part) exceeding 912 billion rubles (15.76 billion dollars) this year.
The FTP for the development of space cosmodromes in 2017-2025 will be allocated over 340 billion rubles (5.87 billion dollars) from the budget, aiming at enhancing research and facilitating the implementation of commercial projects in the space field, Medvedev said.
