Moscow’s budget lost more than 600 billion rubles in 2020 due to the coronavirus pandemic, said Vladimir Efimov, Deputy Mayor of Moscow for Economic Policy and Property and Land Relations.
“We had a dilemma related to the fact that last year, associated with COVID restrictions, cost the Moscow budget more than 600 billion rubles,” Efimov said at the Moscow Financial Forum.
According to Eftimov, the lost amount is a sum of lost income, reduced costs, spending on solving issues with COVID-19.
At the same time, the losses turned out to be “minimal” in comparison with other megacities of the world, the deputy mayor concluded.
“According to the latest estimates, the loss of Moscow budget revenues will exceed a colossal figure of 600 billion rubles, of which about 300 billion rubles are lost revenues, and more than 300 billion are forced, unplanned expenses to fight the pandemic,” the mayor of Moscow Sergei Sobyanin said earlier.
The exact losses to the city’s budget have not yet been calculated. “Trade, services, tourism, sports, recreation and entertainment, and other important sectors of the economy have lost a lot. Citizens’ incomes have perceptibly decreased. Thousands of people have lost their jobs or were forced to close their businesses,” Sobyanin stressed.
