Russia pens budget policy priorities until 2005

At a sitting on Thursday the Russian cabinet set the top priorities of the budget policy for a period until 2005 and will continue to discuss them at the next get-together, Russian Vice-Premier and Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin has said to reporters.

He said that the Finance Ministry has proposed to the government "the version of a fixed budget and the entire budget structure." He called principally important the decision that the growth of expenditure in the country is not to outpace the growth of the gross domestic product. Moreover, on a mid-term perspective the growth of expenditure relative to the gross domestic product is to dwindle.

Among the priorities of the budget policy Kudrin has singled out support for education, health protection, national defense and law-enforcement work, as well as science and the judicial system. Spending on them is to increase, instead of dwindling.