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The Bank of Russia Board of Directors at its meeting held on Friday, 27 October decided that the key interest rate should be reduced by 0.25 p.p. - to 8.25% per annum. In this connection, the Bank of Russia does not rule out the possibility of the key rate being further reduced at one of its next meetings.  

In H1 2017, the macroeconomic situation was determined by a change in the trend of the past four years: investments in capital assets grew at a higher rate than the dynamics of the GDP and households’ ultimate consumption.  With a 1.5% GDP growth in January-June 2017, investments in capital assets increased by 4.8% as compared to H1 2016.

In Q1 2017, for the first time after a 4-year 'pause', the index of investments in fixed assets moved into positive zone, with a growth rate of 102.3% relative to the previous year. The volume of investments in fixed assets in terms of share in GDP in Q1 2017 stayed approximately at its average recorded at the start of each year during the period 2014–2016.

Russia’s territories are highly differentiated, which requires redistributing significant amount of resources both as taxes and as inter-budgetary transfers.

The year 2017 was declared to be the year of ecology in Russia, so discussions about humans’ destructive impact on the environment, including climatic effects, intensified.

The Bank of Russia’s Board of Directors decided to lower the key rate from 9.75% to 9.25%.

The second 3-year privatization program for the years 2014–2016 was approved by the Executive Order of the Government of the Russian Federation of 1 July, 2013, No. 1111-p.

On 23 April, 2017, in a conversation with journalists at the Krasnoyarsk Economic Forum, Ilya Trunin, Deputy Finance Minister of the Russian Federation, mentioned that personal incomes fr om bank deposits could be taxed. That caused a stormy public reaction.

The potential to save on transaction costs determines a rapid increase in the worldwide use of blockchain. One instance of blockchain technology is cryptocurrency – digital means of payment.

The Ministry of Finance is turning back to the idea of issuing OFZ (federal loan bonds) for individuals as an alternative to bank deposits. The first issue (Rb 20bn) with an average annual yield of 8.5% is expected late in April.

At the regular meeting of the Board of Directors of the Central Bank of Russia held on March 24, 2017, a decision was taken to reduce the key interest rate by 0.25 p.p. to 9.75%.
The last time the Central Bank reduced the rate was in September 2016 when it fell from 10.5% to 10%.

The economic block of the government discusses the idea of returning the sales tax which can become an alternative to raising the VAT rate during the tax maneuver. In order to circumvent the decision of the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation that rules out simultaneous introduction of two taxes with a similar tax base, the tax is called “trade duty” in the propositions.

One of the most pressing problems in the tax sphere discussed during the X Russian Business Week held in Moscow on 13–17 March were changes in the taxation of tax consolidated groups (TCG).

At present, it is particularly important for Russia to develop high-tech technologies to ensure import substitution and form long-term sources of economic growth. But how to determine in which regions there are more favorable conditions for development of high-tech industries?

Objective deterioration of oil production conditions requires using more sophisticated taxation instruments. The most effective form of taxation of oil production is the taxation of net profit which can be implemented by introducing a special excess profits tax with progressive tax rate determined by the level of project profitability.

In 2013–2014, the Government set a course for reforming the taxation of the oil industry, which the expert community conditionally called “tax maneuver.”