Budget Investments in Russia: Not Investment but Transformation of Public Property ^☆

Abstract

This chapter is devoted to budget investments in the Russian Federation, which nowadays have a double meaning. This fact often causes confusion and misunderstandings in the implementation of investment activities.

Traditional Russian understanding of investment corresponds to the concept of capital expenditures or investments in fixed assets. As a result of budget investments, according to the budget legislation, the cost of public property necessarily increases. Such investments are budget expenditures for the creation (or purchase) of new capital assets. In this case, the budget investments are like a synonym for capital expenditures.

A new approach to the concept of cost of investments is linked to perception and rethinking of the concept of investment prevailing in the countries of Western Europe and North America. Under this approach, investments are understood as a commercial activity of the foreign investors, which consist of investing their funds in an unlimited range of objects of entrepreneurial activity in the territory of Russia. This approach is also embodied by the legislation of the Russian Federation.

However, in the second (not traditional for Russia) meaning, investment are carried out at the budget execution. These are, for example, assets of sovereign wealth funds of the Russian Federation, which are called the Reserve Fund and National Welfare Fund. These funds are formed by part of the revenues associated with oil production in the case of it exceeding its cost base per barrel, and the free assets of these funds are located in certain foreign currencies and securities.

Citation

Komyagin, D.L. (2016), "Budget Investments in Russia: Not Investment but Transformation of Public Property ^☆ ", The Spread of Financial Sophistication through Emerging Markets Worldwide (Research in Finance, Vol. 32), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 257-267. https://doi.org/10.1108/S0196-382120160000032011