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Russia's anti-crisis plan needs more financial support: deputy PM

Xinhua, February 3, 2015 Adjust font size:

The anti-crisis package approved by the Russian government last week requires more financial backing than what is currently planned, the country's First Deputy Prime Minister Igor Shuvalov said Monday.

"The plan must be financed in a bigger volume than what the Financial Ministry insists," Shuvalov told a government meeting chaired by Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev.

"Financial Ministry and Economic Development Ministry both have difficulties working out an unarguable position," RIA Novosti news agency quoted Shuvalov as saying.

Medvedev responded that "all necessary means have been reserved for priorities", suggesting the re-allocation of the financial support of government projects provided by the National Wealth Fund.

"In the current economic environment, we should take all factors into consideration, review selected projects and certainly make a final decision on what to do," Medvedev said.

He ordered Financial Ministry and Economic Development Ministry to submit their coordinated proposals by Feb. 13 on how to finance the anti-crisis package.

The Russian government published last Wednesday a 38-page anti- crisis austerity plan, which is designed to ensure economic development and social stability amid unfavorable economic conditions.

According to Shuvalov, the first anti-crisis commission meeting would be held on Tuesday to arrange the implementation of action plans.

Meanwhile, Medvedev signed Monday an order banning import of industrial hardware for state-run projects to "give an additional impulse to the import replacement".

The order applies to such hardware as construction equipment, mining machinery, engineering equipment and so on, with the exception of products from the Eurasian Economic Union countries of Belarus, Kazakhstan and Armenia.

The ailing Russian economy took a hit amid mounting pressure from Western sanctions and global plummet of oil prices. According to the Federal State Statistics Service, Russia's gross domestic product growth dropped to 0.6 percent in 2014 from 1.3 percent of the year before. Endite