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Early in July, the RF Ministry of Finance published a draft of The Main Directions of the Tax Policy of the Russian Federation for the Year 2012 and the 2013-2014 Planning Period¹.

By Federal Law of 7 June 2011, No 132-FZ¹, Part II of the RF Tax Code (TC) is augmented by new Article 267.2 "Expenditures on Formation of Reserves Against Future Expenses on Scientific Research and (or) Development". The corresponding provisions of tax legislation will enter into force from 1 January 2012.

One of the key directions of this country’s budget policy for the years 2011 – 2013 that were outlined in the RF President’s Budget Message published on 29 June 2011 is the necessity to speed up the decision-making process with regard to introducing tax on immovable property in the medium term. In this connection the Head of the State noted that this tax should be introduced depending on the completion of cadastre estimation of capital construction objects in those RF subjects where such an estimation had actually taken place, so that the tax could be levied beginning fr om 2012¹.

Amendments to the legislation extending the benefits provided to residents of the innovation center Skolkovo have been prepared¹ .

In 2009-2010 marketing season grain exports from Russia amounted to more than 21 million tons, whereas in the current marketing season 2010-2011 - about 4 million tons.

On 30 May the Board of Directors of the Bank of Russia decided to maintain the same level of interest rates of CBR on operations to provide liquidity to credit institutions. Simultaneously, the Bank of Russia increased its interest rates for deposit operations by 0.25 percentage point.

The recovery of the global economy, which followed the financial crisis, determined the impact on the global oil market.

Since 2009 the government implements a large-scale support of selected universities by giving them on a competitive basis a special status – National Research University (NRU). 29 state universities became research ones during 2009 and 2010.

The second week of May was marked by significant events which took place in the Russian military-industrial policy.

From 2011 budgetary organizations should apply the new chart of accounts introduced to replace invalid instructions on budgetary accounting, approved by the Order of the Russian Ministry of Finance on 30 December 2008 No. 148n.  

On 29 April the Board of Directors of the Bank of Russia decided to raise the refinancing rate fr om 8% to 8,25% annual and by the same amount the majority of interests rates of CBR operations of provision and adsorption of liquidity for credit institutions.

At a plenary meeting of the VIII Krasnoyarsk Economic Forum, Ministry of Finance of Russia A.L. Kudrin held out the prospect of establishing a special fund to stimulate support for investments in the Russian regions beginning with January 1, 2012¹.

In next one to two quarters, Ruble will continue its gradual appreciation and within several months the value of the bi-currency basket may hit the level of 33 Rb.

According to WTO the volume of world trade returned to its pre-crisis levels: 2010 exports went up by 14.5% as a result of recovery trade activity in 2010.

Commentary to the publication: Crude Oil Will not Help // Vedomosty, 06.04.2011, 60 (2826)
The Ministry of Economic Development has decided that oil will not be cheaper and upgraded forecast of the average price for this year to a record $ 105 a barrel. But it will not help the economy: GDP forecast has not changed.