Reuters/Moscow
Russia's government has enough resources to honour all its social spending pledges although this will not be easy, Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev was quoted as telling the country's president yesterday as tensions over Crimea add to Moscow's economic ills.
On returning to office in 2012, President Vladimir Putin promulgated 'May decrees' that included promises to double pay for teachers and doctors by the end of his six-year term.
Analysts from Moscow's Higher School of Economics have said the additional social spending would require 700bn roubles ($20bn), or between 1.2 and 1.3% a year of the $2.1tn-strong Russian economy.
But the economy faces new strains, including those arising from international friction and extra budget spending associated with the annexation of Crimea last month.
"We have the resources to fulfil all the social obligations, although the obligations are hard (to implement)," Medvedev told Putin, according to Interfax news agency.
On Tuesday, the government more than halved its economic growth forecast for 2014. Deputy Economy Minister Andrei Klepach said then that even a new "base case" scenario of 1.1% growth would be unattainable without extra spending, requiring "modification" of the budget rule.
Russian budget rules limit government borrowing to 1% of output and link spending to the long-term oil price.
During Putin's first two terms as president, the economy clocked up annual growth rates of about 7% due to a boom in oil prices, while easy monetary conditions flooded emerging markets with cheap investment dollars.
That ended with the global financial crash of 2008 and, with the government now relying on current oil prices of more than $100 per barrel to balance its books, consumer spending is the main additional factor that is keeping the economy ticking over.
Medvedev said the government had managed to keep the Russia's economy growing despite pressure from the problems in the global economy.
Putin has said that costs of subsidising programmes related to Crimea would not exceed 100bn roubles ($2.8bn) this year.
