The Reserve Fund and the National Wealth Fund (NWF) decided to unite, Finance Minister Anton Siluanov said on Friday. The existence of such plans in the Ministry of Finance was said before, explaining that the consolidation of resources will give more maneuverability in their management.

Earlier such an idea was expressed by the ex-head of the Ministry of Finance, the head of the Center for Strategic Research Alexei Kudrin. It was with him in 2003 that the Stabilization Fund was created, where excess oil and gas revenues accumulated. In 2008, the state stash divided into two parts: the Reserve Fund, which is used to cover the budget deficit with a sharp decline in revenues, and the National Welfare Fund, designed to improve the sustainability of the pension system.

But in fact, the NWF has not been replenished since 2010, when all state petrodollars were decided to be used as a "temporary anti-crisis measure" directly to budget expenditures. And today, in the context of a decline in oil prices, the Finance Ministry has considered the expediency of preserving the NWF. All additional revenues in 2017 will be used to restore the Reserve Fund.

"We believe that the decisions taken by the National Welfare Fund to invest in infrastructure projects - they must be implemented. But the other remaining part of the SWF is the same source for financing the federal budget expenditures, the same funds as the Reserve Fund, "Siluanov specified..

From an economic point of view, the merger of funds looks neutral - from the transfer of funds back and forth their size will not change. For clarity, the head of the economic and legal school of the consulting company FBK, Sergey Pyatenko, suggests comparing state funds with resources of just a human.

"What, in fact, do we have?" There are gold and foreign currency reserves - it's like a deposit in a bank. There is a SWF - it's like a stash, which lies either at home under a pillow, or in a bank cell. And there is a reserve fund of the government - this is like what lies specifically in the wallet. And then, and another, and the third important. But if some of these articles are merged and, for example, money from the banking cell is added to those that are lying under the pillow or in the wallet, is it really changing something? Neither poorer nor richer will not, "- argues the expert.

In his view, some sharing of reserves is more correct, since it is so clearer that what happens to money. When each fund has its own spending procedure, it is easier for society to control this process. But in general, the difference is insignificant, basically this is purely a statistical question.

Now the Government can dispose of the Reserve Fund almost freely at its own discretion; Access to SWF is more difficult. Nevertheless, it was already used to finance long-term infrastructure projects and combat the crisis.

The pooling of funds is a purely formal task that will allow the Ministry of Finance to facilitate access to and management of sovereign reserves, according to the head of the department of economics and finance of the Department of Economics and Social Sciences of the Russian Academy of Sciences Alla Dvoretskaya.

"Honestly, I do not know why the Stabilization Fund was divided, and why two existing funds are now unifying," she said, "Ytru". - Both of them still melt before our eyes, because oil does not grow in price, and budget expenditures do not decrease. I have to get into this piggy bank. Therefore, whatever you may say, the essence is that the sovereign fund will soon disappear, and we did not manage, like other countries like Norway, to accumulate it to the level that the issues with the Pension Fund deficit can be solved, and other tasks ".

In the matter of pooling funds, it seems that a certain role is played by the political aspect. The government fund is spent still faster and is already close to exhaustion. In May, Siluanov said that when executing the 2017 budget, the money of the Reserve Fund will be spent completely, and they will have to run a hand in the NWF.

At the beginning of June, there were 4.2 trillion rubles in the NWF, in the Reserve Fund - 933 billion rubles. Obviously, their consolidation will reduce attention to the zeroing of the government fund and show that the state still has a financial security cushion.

At the same time, the head of the Ministry of Finance promised that next year the Reserve Fund will begin to restore. It is planned to transfer 623 billion rubles from the oil and gas revenues of the current year. Later, the minister expressed the opinion that the measures taken to cut spending would help to minimize the budget deficit in 2018, and by 2019 the government will completely abandon the use of sovereign funds and will finance the budget deficit at the expense of other sources, including domestic and foreign borrowing.