(Reuters) – Russia’s Finance Minister Anton Siluanov said on Wednesday that his ministry is proposing to tighten the country’s budget rule to take into account reduced possibilities for covering the budget deficit.
At present, Russia’s budget rule prevents the government borrowing more than 1 percent of gross domestic product.
Siluanov said that the Finance Ministry may borrow only 400 billion roubles ($11.1 billion) domestically in 2014 versus 800 billion roubles as planned earlier, and that non-oil and gas revenues, loans and privatisation proceeds may be 1.2 trillion roubles lower than expected in 2014. (Reporting by Dasha Korsunskaya, writing by Jason Bush, Editing by Alexei Anishchuk)