MOSCOW (Reuters) - Finance Minister Anton Siluanov said on Friday that the Russian economy could contract by 4 percent next year and that the budget could have a deficit of more than 3 percent of gross domestic product if oil prices average $60 a barrel.
Siluanov also told journalists that his ministry had recalculated its budget forecasts to take into account oil prices at $60 a barrel and that he expected the rouble's average exchange rate to be around 51 roubles per dollar in 2015.
He added that state bank VTB (MM:VTBR) could get 100 billion roubles (1.22 billion pounds) from the National Wealth Fund by the end of the year and 150 billion roubles more in 2015, while Gazprombank
(Reporting by Dasha Korsunskaya; writing by Alexander Winning and Vladimir Soldatkin)