At the end of the third quarter, Sberbank held 8.19 trillion rubles in government securities on its balance sheet. Over the year, their volume increased by 3.8 trillion rubles, according to the bank’s financial statements.
Sber’s deputy chairman of the board and CFO Taras Skvortsov said that the bank accounts for about 30% of purchases of Russian OFZs, and in the third quarter that share fell to about 25%. He added that Sber intends to continue maintaining its share of the government debt market and is factoring the Finance Ministry’s plans to sharply increase borrowing into its forecasts.
This year, the Finance Ministry plans to raise 5 trillion rubles on the debt market, taking repayments into account; next year — 6.14 trillion, and in 2027–2029 — almost 18 trillion rubles. According to the ministry’s estimate, the federal budget deficit this year will amount to 7.3 trillion rubles, and next year — 5.4 trillion.
To cover military spending, which consumes every third ruble in the treasury, the government plans to increase domestic public debt by 22 trillion rubles over the next three years, according to the draft budget law. Under these calculations, public debt will rise to 19.9% of GDP this year, to 21.7% of GDP next year, and to 24.1% of GDP by the end of the three-year period, which will be the highest level for Russia since 2002.
Oleg Buklemishev, deputy dean of the Faculty of Economics at Moscow State University, who worked in the Finance Ministry and the government in the late 1990s and early 2000s, told Reuters that the high cost of borrowing is accelerating debt growth. According to him, for the system to keep functioning, either lower risks, or a sustained decline in inflation and the central bank rate, or faster economic growth are needed.
Sources
