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In July 2013, the inflation rate in the Russian Federation accelerated: the Consumer Price Index, as seen by the month’s results, amounted to 0.8% (against 0.4% in July), thus dropping below its year-earlier level of 1.2%.

In the first half of 2013 the population's bank deposits increased by RUB1.1 trillion, which is 30% more than in the corresponding period of 2012.

The Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) published the Action Plan on Base Erosion and Profit Shifting (BEPS)1.

Data of business surveys of the Gaidar Institute evidence that the May expectations for demand growth which had encouraged enterprises to increase output were not met and the output growth in June under the conditions of the declining demand became a problem for the Russian industry.

Following Russian Government's recent approval of a new 3-year privatization program for 2014-2016, Rosimuschestvo (Federal Agency for State Property Management of Russia) made a few statements about its intention to make this process more transparent by introducing external management for a period of sale of JSC's stocks with the establishment of asset managers for the purpose of detecting conflicts and engaging professional auditors who would be selected on a competitive basis to assess financial conditions of privatized companies.

Russia has received a notice from China, the United States, Turkey, Ukraine, and Japan of their intention to join negotiations on the car recycling tax within the WTO which were initiated by the European Union.

Recently, the Minister of Finance of Russia has allegedly agreed with the Ministry of Defense of Russia on the reduction of SAP expenditures in years to come. According to mass media with reference to the State Duma1, it would mean that a part of the federal budget expenditures would be "deferred" from 2014-2016 to 2017-2018.

The Fiscal Policy Guidelines for 2014-2016 (hereinafter - the FPG) were published in the Ministry of Finance's official website on Thursday, July 18, 2013. Macroeconomic indicators served as a basis of the draft federal budget for 2014 and planning period of 2015-2016, show accumulation of problems in the economy and, consequently, in the fiscal sector.

Minister of Labor and Social Security Maksim Topilin has recently stated that civil servant wages are very low. Furthermore, regional authorities are running short of personnel.

Industrial production index stood at 100.1% in H1 2013 against H1 2012. Such a slow dynamics can be explained by stagnating industrial production in the first quarter and a growth rate increase as little as 0.3 p.p. year-on-year in the second quarter.

On July 12, a regular meeting of Bank of Russia's Board of Directors left Central Bank's interest rates unchanged, while the Bank of Russia announced the introduction of a new instrument of refinancing in the banking system - auctions on 12-month loans secured by non-market assets or guarantees.

According to the data available as of January 1, 2012, Russia's oil productive capacity was 17,8 billion tons under C1 category and 10,2 billion tons under C2 category. National gas reserves amounted to 48,8 trillion cubic meters under С1 category and 19,6 trillion cubic meters under С2 categoryThese data were presented by Minister for Natural Resources of Russia Sergei Donsky. He explained that it was the first ever official data disclosure after the declassification of information about national reserves in Russia.

The European Union repeatedly accused the Russian Federation of violations of WTO regulations.

The problems of pumping up the federal budget didn't prevent the Ministry of Finance of Russia from envisaging a 2.6-fold wage rise for civil servants in Russia.

Since 2012 the World Bank updated its classification of countries by gross national income per capita.

First data of Gaidar Institute's business surveys on the situation in the Russian production sector in May 2013 show that the situation has been deteriorating in the sector. Enterprises had to further slow down their output, lower prices, reduce the number of employees and be very careful about their investment plans in response to further drop in sales and growth in finished product surplus stock.