In 2008, the federal budget revenue will amount to 8 trillion 965.7 billion roubles and expenditures to 7 trillion and 22 billion roubles, Mr Kudrin said. The budget's additional revenues will total 908.8 billion roubles, of which 778.3 billion will be accrued from oil and gas proceeds and 130.5 billion from other revenue sources. 

The expenditure growth will amount to 120.4 billion roubles in 2008. Foreign loans are planned at 10 billion roubles. According to Mr Kudrin, the latter are tied loans, aimed at supporting Russia's exports.

The total volume of additional expenditures in 2008 will total 262 billion roubles. Out of that amount, 111.7 billion roubles will be funded through savings on national debt servicing and through reducing the originally planned spending on some federal targeted programmes. The rest of the funds will be secured through appropriation of the funds originally planned for spending in 2009 and 2010.

Mr Kudrin said that the general expenses will be increased by 49.5 billion roubles in 2008; investments by 36.7 billion roubles; expenditure on social benefits and wages by 29.9 billion roubles; supplementary monetary allowances, compensations for petroleum, oil, and lubricants (POL) price increase by 19.7 billion roubles; inter-budgetary transfers by 19.3 billion roubles; payment of sanctions imposed by judicial acts against the Russian Federation by 14.2 billion roubles. Also, 4.7 billion roubles will be allocated to increase the volume of the Reserve Fund for Disaster Relief and Emergency Situations.

According to Mr Kudrin, the money supply growth in Russia has significantly decreased and as of May 1, 2008 stood at 33% per year. "For the first time in two years we were able to keep the money supply within the planned limits," he said.

Mr Kudrin said that the Finance Ministry was predicting that the inflation growth rate would decrease by the end of the year and that it would stay within the planned limits in 2009. "The fact that we were able to keep the inflation growth rate within the planned limits, as stipulated by the new draft Budget Law and based on the new mechanism, is an indication that the inflation growth rate is likely to decrease by the end of the year," he said.  

He mentioned that the amendments to the federal budget will be considered at the next Government Presidium meeting on June 2, 2008, and would be submitted to the State Duma within one to two weeks after that. He believes that the amendments will be adopted in June or in the beginning of July. 

He said that the Government would allocate additional 39 billion dollars to fund the preparations for the Olympic Games in Sochi. "The additional 39 billion roubles will be mainly allocated for road construction, land purchasing, and construction of water treatment facilities," said Mr Kudrin.

According to Mr Kudrin, the price of oil will be $72 per barrel in 2010. "We expect that the oil price will decrease to about $72 per barrel," Mr Kudrin said. He said this was due to the "slowdown of the world economic growth."

He also believes that in the next three years "the dollar depreciation against other currencies will stop."