Expected lower oil royalty revenues are not expected to cause a decrease in federal budget revenues, Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin told Russia Today, a Russian English-language television network, on Tuesday.
The comment follows a decision by the government to introduce royalty tax breaks for oil fields and increase the royalty tax-exempt part of oil revenues.
Kudrin said, however, that the projected drop in royalty revenues would result in lower transfers to the National Welfare Fund.
The government's revenues from oil and gas are transferred to the federal budget, which is used for current spending, as well as to the National Welfare Fund and the Reserve Fund.
The National Welfare Fund and the Reserve Fund, which were set up by splitting the Stabilization Fund, are used for isolating a part of the money supply to reduce inflationary trends and as a reserve for future government spending.