August 2007
PUBLICATIONS
Galina Kurlyandskaya. Moscow and Regions Share Russia’s Oil and Gas Revenues.
The article was published in the “Federations: Sharing the Pie”, vol. 6, # 1 February/March 2007
The Russian Federation shares first place with Saudi Arabia in terms of extraction of hydrocarbon raw materials (oil and gas) in the world. Oil and gas production account for about nine per cent of Russia’s Gross Domestic Product — $70 billion U.S.
The extraction of hydrocarbons is subject to taxes that are applied to mining operations, while their sale abroad is subject to export duties. Extraction of oil and gas is being carried out in 39 of Russia’s 83 regions.
About 90 per cent of Russia’s gas production is concentrated in the Yamalo-Nenetskiy Autonomous Area, while almost 60 per cent of oil production is carried out in the neighbouring regions: the Khanty-Mansiyskiy and the Nenetskiy Autonomous Areas. These regions are situated in the north of the European part of Russia and in the north of Western Siberia (see map). They account for 8.5 per cent of the territory of Russia and a mere 1.3 per cent of the country’s population.
Export duties on oil and gas, like all other customs duties in the Russian Federation, accrue exclusively to the federal government. However, several federal taxes, such as those on mining operations (including oil and gas), are shared between the federal and regional budgets. This sharing of those tax revenues is carried out on a derivation basis: an equal share of revenues in all regions accrues to regional budgets in proportion to the amount of taxes paid by the taxpayers registered in each region.
The CFP issued its findings within the Provision of Public Services in Rural Areas Project
The Center for Fiscal Policy presents the results of the project whose main goal was to find the ways and mechanisms for the most effective and efficient delivery of public services in rural and remote areas in terms of scarce skilled labor, material and financial resources.
The health care and education being the most important social and publicly funded services rendered to the population at the local level were selected for the research.
The efficiency of service delivery was considered from consumers’ point of view with a special stress made on the accessibility and quality of the services in question.
A special attention was paid to spending efficiency of public service delivery. Possible ways to improve public spending efficiency and find additional sources of financing were considered. Also, problems associated with implementation of new organizational forms of public service delivery in Russia-specific circumstances were analyzed.
The project was implemented with the financial support from the Open Society Institute.
The Project team Leader Viktoria Semerkhanova
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NEW PROJECTS
Assistance in developing of recommendations on implementation of performance-based budgeting and system of monitoring of public services provision in education on the level of general school educational institutions, and institualizing parents’ donations (prevention of illegal money turnover, establishing of public entities that would participate in negotiations upon amounts as well as in the following-up monitoring of the donated money spendings)
Project Team Leader Natalia Tipenko
Consulting assistance in the area of local governance performance: assigned and delegated responsibilities
Client: WYG International Lmited (UK)
Incorporation of performance-based budgeting mechanismsm in Social Protection, Education, Culture and Health Sectors in Lipetsk Oblast. Optimization of the managerial systems in order to improve financial sustainability of public services provision
Project Team Leader Leonid Bogdanov
UPCOMING
Report on the finings of the project IT in Budgeting on Local Level: Experience and Potential will be issued shortly
Project team Leader Olga Vorontsova
In early September the CFP will conduct the first out of a series of training seminars for the Lipetsk Oblast administrators. (For details of the project please see here)
In Nizniy Novgorod the CFP will conduct a seminar within the framework of the Transition to performance-based budgeting within the framework of the Reform of Regional Finance in Nizhniy Novgorod Oblast in 2006 2008 Program The CFP experts will present the developed standards for public services provision in education, culture and health sectors for Nizniy Novgorod region.
Project Team Leader Antonina Kovalevskaya