First Deputy Prime Minister Andrei Belousov criticized the metallurgists who “screamed” over several tens of billions of rubles at a time when the authorities allocated trillions to support the economy. At a meeting with the participants of the International Youth Economic Forum at the SPIEF, Mr. Belousov said that the country’s authorities “burned” about 4 trillion rubles to support the economy due to the coronavirus in 2020-2021, without taking anything from metallurgists who received super profits thanks to the increased metal prices.
“We took everything from banks in the form of borrowings,” said the First Deputy Prime Minister (quoted by RIA Novosti). He expressed dissatisfaction that representatives of metallurgical companies complained about the increase in the mineral extraction tax. “I honestly told them: you made some screams because of several tens of billions of rubles with your EBITDA and income growth. We burned on this story, on the support (of the economy.- “B”) 4 trillion rubles, without taking anything from you, we took from banks in the form of borrowings, ”said Andrei Belousov.
Earlier, the first deputy prime minister said that the government does not set itself the task of “taking away” additional revenues from metallurgists, the task of the Cabinet is to meet the parameters of projects that have risen in price due to prices for metal products. Prior to that, Mr. Belousov said that metallurgists in 2020 “pushed the state, the budget in terms of state investments and state defense orders by about 100 billion rubles.” After that, the head of the Ministry of Industry and Trade Denis Manturov held a meeting with metallurgists. The meeting did not discuss “additional tax exemptions”.
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