Russia will run a budget deficit in 2009 for the first time for a decade, a Kremlin economic aide was quoted as saying by RIA Novosti news agency on Wednesday.

`Yes, there undoubtedly will be,` Arkady Dvorkovich, an advisor to President Dmitry Medvedev, said in response to a question about whether Russia would have a deficit next year.

`The deficit is caused by the fall in oil prices, above all,` he said, adding that the government would tap into its reserves accumulated from years of high oil prices in order to cover the gap.

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He also held out the possibility that Russia could seek external loans to overcome the fallout from the global financial crisis.

`If necessary, we will do this,` Mr Dvorkovich was quoted as saying by RIA Novosti and ITAR-TASS, although he added that Russia would not turn to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) as it did in the 1990s.

`We are only talking about loans from the market.... The discussion is not about the IMF or other such organisations, we will definitely not ask for their services,` he said, according to RIA Novosti.

Russia has had budget surpluses since 1999. Until recent months the government enjoyed strong revenues from the rising price of oil, Russia`s main export, but oil prices have plummeted amid the global economic slowdown.

AFP via The Strait Times