OREANDA-NEWS. The federal budget of the Russian Federation in January-November 2020 was executed with a deficit of 2.5 trillion rubles, in November expenditures exceeded revenues by 815 billion rubles, the Finance Ministry said.

In October, the deficit was 145 billion rubles, in September - 209.4 billion, in August - 173 billion rubles, in July - 572 billion, in June - 549 billion, in May - 520 billion rubles.

The budget deficit of the Russian Federation in 2020 could amount to about 4% of GDP, said Russian Finance Minister Anton Siluanov in September, "and initially we planned a surplus of slightly less than 1% of GDP." This is about 4 trillion rubles. In July, the Ministry of Finance expected a budget deficit in 2020 of 5% of GDP.

The federal budget in 2019 was executed with a surplus of 2 trillion rubles, or 1.8% of GDP. The Russian economy will shrink in 2020 by about 5% to 105 trillion rubles.

Despite the budget deficit, Russian President Vladimir Putin urged not to allow problems with the availability of food, as in the USSR, when at that time people could not purchase food due to a shortage, and now there may not be enough money to buy them.

Food prices in Russia are going up three times faster than in the EU. Food prices in Russia rose 4.1% in January-October, and 1.4% in the EU, Rosstat reports. At the same time, food prices in Russia rose 0.8% in October, and 0.3% in the EU.