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In December, in Russia the prospect of a serious local government reform on which experts already started working was outlined.

The indirect effect of withdrawal of the Master-Bank's license happened to be more explicit. It consisted mainly in redistribution of customers from smaller banks to larger ones, primarily, state-owned banks. The above situation could not, but affect banks' liabilities and assets.

The situation in the investment area remains rather complicated despite the fact that in November 2013 the growth rates of investments in capital assets year on year entered the positive area and amounted to 100.2% after a sustained drop in the past three months.

After a year-long break, in the section: The Open Data of the Web-site of the Ministry of Defense the official statistics of the above Ministry provided for by Cl. 7.1 of the Federal Plan of Statistical Work was published.

On December 19, it became known that a number of large Russian companies – KamAZ, RusHydro and Rusal – declared that they supported deoffsorization of Russian economy and intended to abandon their offshore structures.

According to A Klepach, Deputy Minister of Economic Development "the year of 2013 became the year of lost opportunities in terms of creation of new incentives for economy and prevention of economic slowdown". According to official estimates, within eleven months of 2013 GDP growth rates amounted to 1.3% as compared to the previous year which index corresponds the 2013 forecast of the Ministry of Economic Development of the RF (1.4%).

In December, the rate of inflation kept growing due to the fact that both seasonal depreciation of prices on horticultural products stopped and prices on dairy products and eggs appreciated.

Today, RF President Vladimir Putin opened the annual press conference by saying that in 2013, Russia’s budget deficit will amount to approximately 0.5% of GDP.

On 18 December, the US Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC), at its last session in 2013, came to the decision to keep the key interest rate at its record low level of 0–0.25% per annum. This was announced by Ben S. Bernanke, Chairman of the Board of Governors of the FRS.

On December 17, the Gasprom and Naftogas signed relevant supplements to the gas contract: the price of gas for Ukraine is reduced to $268.5 per 1,000 cubic meters fr om the current one of $406. Also, an agreement was reached on a purchase by Russia of $15bn worth of the Ukrainian Eurobonds. According to Ukrainian Premier Nikolai Azarov, without the above arrangements with Russia Ukraine faced both a bankruptcy and social collapse.

A detailed analysis of indices of business surveys of the Gaidar Institute showed that in November Russian industry made probably an effort to break away from stagnation.

The World Bank has revised downward its growth projection for Russia’s national economy in 2013 and 2014.

On 13 December, the Bank of Russia revoked the banking licenses of three mid-sized banks: Investbank, the Bank of Project Financing, or BPF, and Smolensk Bank. The reasons that Russia's financial regulator gave for the closure of each of the three banks are pretty similar: inadequate liquidity, failure to meet legal obligations to creditors and depositors, and low asset quality resulting from risky credit policies.

On 10 December, the Bank of Russia reduced the accumulated amount of its FX interventions related to an automatic shift of the upper and lower boundaries operational band by 5 kopecks, from $ 400m to $ 350m. This decision marked yet another step towards a more flexible exchange rate, made by the regulator in the framework of the planned shift, in 2015, to a floating exchange rate.

The texts of two federal laws recently signed by the RF President, Federal Law No 349-FZ ‘On the Federal Budget for 2014 and the Planning Period 2015 and 2016’, and Federal Law No 348-FZ ‘On the Introduction of Amendments to the Federal Law ‘On the Federal Budget for 2013 and the Planning Period 2014 and 2015’ were posted to the RF Ministry of Finance’s website (on 4 and 9 December respectively). Besides, the textual part of the first Law (without the appendiced tables) was published on 6 December in Rossiiskaia gazeta [The Russian Gazette].

The Accounts Chamber of the Russian Federation and the expert community suggested, as a method of preventing tax avoidance via offshore channels, that the RF Government should introduce an additional tax, to be levied on transactions with offshore companies.