Above 900 million dollars to be allocated from the budget to support Russian agriculture in 2003

In 2003 some 27 billion rubles (about 900 million dollars) will be allocated from Russia's federal budget to support agriculture, which is 30 percent more against the current year, Alexei Gordeyev, Agriculture Minister and Vice-Premier of the government, said on Monday.

He also said that 3,450 million rubles were allocated from the budget under leasing to supply agriculture equipment.

The Vice-Premier is not satisfied with the technical equipment of the Russian agroindustrial complex. He noted that technological losses had been reduced to 2 percent. Gordeyev stressed that to resolve this issue it is necessary to purchase annually 20,000-22,000 combines, while now the number is 9,000.