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On December 30, 2012 the Federal Law No. 302-FZ "On Amendments to Chapters 1, 2, 3 and 4 of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation" was signed, coming into effect fr om March 1, 2013.

Since Monday, Russia imposed temporary restrictions on the import of frozen pork and beef, as well as turkey meat, giblets and offal from the U.S. Russian Agency for Health and Consumer Rights explains it by the presence of the banned adjuvant ractopamine in meat.

At the last RF government meeting the assessment of state-owned assets was disclosed; it makes about Rb 12 trillion. At the same time, the RF Minister of Economic Development stated that this value is underestimated of scale and the real market value of assets exceeds Rb 100 trillion.

A few days ago in Washington the first round of intergovernmental Russian-US consultations on Russia's accession to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) was started.

Reduced transaction demand for money and the growth of funds at the accounts of the budget in 2012 have provoked a reduction in monetary supply growth.

On January 23 Budget Partnership, Washington, has published its regular, the fourth one since 2006 report with a review of the budget 2012 transparency. The review presents already traditional transparency index of the state budgets with the relevant rating (for 100 countries this time), three new indices that reflect public participation in the budget process, budget authority of legislative bodies and Accounts Chambers.

The Ministry of Economic Development of the Russian Federation has submitted to the Government of the Russian Federation a proposal on transformation of the Investment Fund in order to solve the issue of financing of infrastructure projects, said Andrei Belousov, Minister of Economic Development of the Russian Federation.

In January 2013, the inflation rate kept growing: on the basis of the results of the three weeks of the month the consumer price index amounted to 0.6%, having exceeded the January 2012 index value (+0.5%).

In the Report of the World Bank: “The Global Economic Prospects” published in January 2013, it is said that four years after the beginning of the global financial crisis the world economy is still unstable.

From 1 January 2012, the Common Economic Space came into existence. In our brief commentary, we are going to look at the way this new legal environment created by the member countries of the Customs Union is organized, and how it is being accommodated to by our business community and is reflected in Russia’s budget. 

On 27 December, U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner announced that, as early as 31 December, the US government would officially hit its current authorized borrowing limit - also known as the debt ceiling - of $ 16,394 trillion, as a result of which Washington would be forced to default on its financial liabilities.

 

In the final months of 2012, Russia's financial sector registered a slowdown in the growth rate of credit granted to businesses and individuals.

A few days ago the RF Government gave its approval to the State Program for the Development of the North Caucasus Until the Year 2025, which will cost around Rb 2.5 trillion. 10% of funding for the Program will be allocated from the state budget, while the remaining 90% is expected to come in the form of equity investment by private investors. In order to attract banking sector financing for the Program, the latter envisages the granting of considerable state guarantees for credits.