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The logo of Russian technology giant Yandex is on display at the company's headquarters in Moscow, Russia December 9, 2022. Dutch holding company Yandex NV's planned restructuring is aimed at recouping some shareholder funds with the sale of its main revenue-generating Russian businesses, such as its search and ride-hailing operations. 'CONTROL FOR LESS'Yandex NV may sell 100% of a holding company set up in Russia's Kaliningrad region, said one of the people. A third source said this scenario would see Yandex NV make a clean break with Russia. Yandex NV shareholders could easily have been left with nothing, said one of the sources.

Persons: Evgenia, Yandex, Yandex's, Arkady Volozh, Russia's, nationalising Yandex, Darya Korsunskaya, Alexander Marrow, David Goodman, Bernadette Baum Organizations: REUTERS, Kremlin, VK, Reuters, Carlsberg, Danone, Yandex, Thomson Locations: Moscow, Russia, Ukraine, Yandex, Dubai, Russia's Kaliningrad, nationalising

But Russia's Accounts Chamber, which oversees budget execution, warned on Monday there were risks the Urals price would fall below $60 in 2024-2026. Russia's forecast sees economic growth of 2.3% in 2024, well above estimates of 1.1% from the International Monetary Fund and 0.5%-1.5% from the Bank of Russia. CHANGING TUNEAt Russia's flagship economic forum in St Petersburg in June, Siluanov said increasing expenditure was difficult, as budget spending had already increased by 1-1/2 times from 2019 to 2022. Now, even as the government outlines plans for spending to jump to 36.7 trillion roubles in 2024, he is more relaxed. Renaissance Capital's Donets and Melaschenko said Russia could create temporary taxes, permanently increase rates of VAT, or adjust Russia's budget rule to permit more spending of energy revenues.

Persons: Evgenia, Anton Tabakh, Vladimir Putin, Anton Siluanov, Denis Popov, Yevgeny Suvorov, Suvorov, Sofya Donets, Andrei Melaschenko, Dmitry Polevoy, Siluanov, Melaschenko, Alexei Sazanov, Sazanov, Konstantin Sonin, It's, Sumanta Sen, Mark Trevelyan, Alexander Marrow, Catherine Evans Organizations: U.S ., Russian, REUTERS, Washington, Finance, International Monetary Fund, Bank of Russia, Capital, Reuters Graphics Russia, University of Chicago, Thomson Locations: Moscow, Russia, Ukraine, West, St Petersburg

In 2021, the year before Moscow launched its invasion of Ukraine, defence spending totalled 3.57 trillion roubles, 14.4% of total spending. In 2022, the share of defence spending rose to 17.7%, data on Russia's electronic budget page showed earlier this year. That may mean that defence spending will also be significantly higher than first envisaged. Moscow doubled its target for defence spending in 2023 to 9.7 trillion roubles, Reuters reported exclusively in August, citing a government document. EDUCATION, HEALTHCARE FREEZEAs defence spending in 2024 triples from pre-invasion levels, the share of spending on "national security", which covers funding for law enforcement agencies, is also rising, set to reach 9.2% in 2024, the documents showed.

Persons: Vladimir Putin, Mikhail Metzel, Anton Siluanov, Siluanov, Donets, Dmitry Peskov, Darya, Alexander Marrow, Philippa Fletcher Organizations: Sputnik, REUTERS, Defence, Reuters, CIS, Renaissance, Thomson Locations: Moscow, Russia, Kremlin, Ukraine, Russian

Finance Minister Anton Siluanov said Russia would return to following its budget rule in 2024, envisaging an oil price of $60 per barrel. The government was discussing budget plans for the next three years. Bloomberg News reported that Russia is also planning a huge hike in defence spending next year, swelling to 6% of GDP from 3.9% in 2023 and 2.7% in 2021. Siluanov said Russia planned to raise domestic borrowing to more than 4 trillion roubles annually to fund its deficits. Siluanov said Russia's NWF would hold 6.7 trillion roubles by end-2024, down from 13.7 trillion roubles, or 9.1% of GDP as of Sept. 1.

Persons: Vladimir Putin, Denis Manturov, Alexei Krivoruchko, Mikhail Metzel, Mikhail Mishustin, Mishustin, Anton Siluanov, Siluanov, Russia's, Vladimir Soldatkin, Darya Korsunskaya, Alexander Marrow, Mark Trevelyan Organizations: Sputnik, REUTERS Acquire, Finance, National Wealth Fund, Bloomberg News, Reuters, Thomson Locations: Izhevsk, Russia, Ukraine MOSCOW, Moscow, Ukraine

The economy ministry forecast GDP growth of 2% in 2024, down from 2.6% when it last provided macroeconomic forecasts in the autumn. SHRINKING SURPLUSRussia's current account surplus is shrinking sharply, down around 73% in the first quarter of 2023. Economists from the Institute of International Finance said Russia had a large "excess" current account surplus in 2022, with a surplus above and beyond the normal seasonal path in 2021 and 2022. "This windfall has ended in 2023, with Russia's current account surplus below 'normal', likely one reason why the rouble has weakened year-to-date," it added. The economy ministry lowered its rouble rate forecast to 76.5 to the dollar in 2023, from 68.3 in the previous forecast, and to 76.8 from 70.9 in 2024.

But based on Friday's figures, Russia posted a surplus in March of 181 billion roubles, improving on deficits of 821 billion roubles in February and 1.76 trillion roubles in January. Spending accelerated 34% in the quarter to 8.1 trillion roubles, the preliminary data showed. Overall government income was down 20.8% in the quarter compared with 2022 at 5.7 trillion roubles, led by a 45% dive in energy revenues to 1.64 trillion roubles, the data showed. "The large budget deficit...increases nervousness on the market in relation to the price that geopolitical tensions are costing, and requires efforts directed at improving budget revenues," she said. The central bank has repeatedly warned that the budget deficit poses inflationary risks and may compel it to raise interest rates from the current 7.5%.

Last week's official data showed annual industrial output decline slowed in February, largely thanks to the defence sector, offsetting some of the damage wrought mainly by sanctions on Russia's key energy exports. Russian industrial output fell 1.7% year-on-year in February after a 2.4% drop in January, data from the federal statistics service Rosstat showed. Polevoy estimated that non-defence industrial production shrank about 8% year-on-year, while output of sectors with a high share of state defence orders jumped 36%. The decline in energy revenues has pushed Russia's budget deficit to $34 billion in January-February, compared with a surplus of $4 billion in 2022. LONG-TERM DECLINEAn independent study last month suggested Russia's middle class will shrink as social inequality grows, even if sanctions get relaxed.

Non-oil and gas revenues were 28% lower at 981 billion roubles, attributed to lower domestic VAT and income tax takings. Overall, budget revenues for the month were down 35.1%, while spending was 58.7% higher in January 2023, at 3.12 trillion roubles, already more than 10% of the full-year spending plan. January's deficit already stands at 60% of the whole year's plan of 2.93 trillion roubles and analysts expect the shortfall to widen to more than 5 trillion roubles if current conditions persist. Russia's main sources of covering the budget deficit are domestic borrowing, which it stepped up sharply in the final quarter of 2022, and its rainy day fund of accumulated energy revenues. On Monday, the ministry said the National Wealth Fund (NWF) stood at $155 billion, with 38.5 billion roubles worth of Chinese yuan and gold spent in January to cover the deficit.

Jan 26 (Reuters) - Russia's finance ministry on Thursday proposed scrapping liquidity restrictions for spending on "anti-crisis" investments from its National Wealth Fund (NWF), citing the need to support key sectors amid challenging geopolitical conditions. Russia's fiscally conservative authorities have tended to be cautious in their use of NWF funds. The ministry proposed that the total volume of such investments not exceed 4.25 trillion roubles ($61.24 billion). The NWF is Russia's sovereign wealth fund, built up through years of profits on the country's oil and gas exports. As of Feb. 1 last year, three weeks before Russia sent troops into Ukraine, the total fund stood at $174.9 billion, or 10.2% of projected GDP.

"The mobilisation declaration and the strengthening of geopolitical and sanctions risk are launching the second wave of the economic crisis," said Evgeny Suvorov, an economist at CentroCreditBank, expecting Russia's economic contraction to worsen in the final months of the year. But there was no acknowledgement of any link to his sudden partial mobilisation announcement on Sept. 21. The central bank on Tuesday said economic activity in Russia slowed significantly at the end of September. "The main consequence of mobilisation is the loss of human capital," said veteran economist Natalya Zubarevich. "It was possible to count exclusively on human capital to pull the economy through, but now a part of this human capital of productive age is subject to mobilisation and another part is leaving," Polevoy said.

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