Finance Ministry and State Duma discuss new budget investment strategy

Officials from the Russian Finance Ministry and the State Duma, the lower house of parliament, are discussing a new concept for distributing budget investments, Anton Siluanov, head of the macroeconomic policy and banking activities department of the Finance Ministry, reported at the conference 'Modern practice and mechanisms for attracting investments to companies.' Siluanov noted that the function of distributing budget investments would be transferred from the Duma to the government because legislative authorities often lobbied certain companies that were not ready for investments. These new regulations may become effective in 2003.

According to the 2003 budget draft, the volume of investments was set at 50bn rubles (about $1.58bn at the current exchange rate).