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| Photo: Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin (L) meets with job-seekers while visiting a job centre in Podolsk on March 4, 2009. | ||
Russia's Cabinet is proposing spending more than 2 trillion rubles ($55 billion) on social projects and support for the troubled banking system as part of a rework of this year's budget plan, Russian news agencies cited the finance minister as saying Wednesday.
Alexei Kudrin presented a plan for the redistribution of budget expenses in 2009 at a meeting chaired by President Dmitry Medvedev.
Kudrin said the Cabinet, headed by Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, is calling for more than 2 trillion rubles to be injected into banks and the social sphere as a result of the redistribution of spending.
Putin, who is in charge of the economy, visited an unemployment office outside Moscow. He assured Russians that the ruble - which has lost one-third of its value since September - will not collapse.
Asked by a woman at the center whether the ruble would rise, Putin said, "Definitely."
He said that even if oil prices fall further, the government has adequate reserves to keep the ruble relatively stable against the dollar and euro.
Russia experienced a remarkable boom during Putin's eight-year presidency, but his policies are now being tested by the nation's worst economic crisis in a decade and he appears eager to avoid unrest.
The social sector is to get an extra 370 billion rubles ($10 billion) under the redistribution plan, Kudrin was quoted as saying, while Russia's provinces will get 300 billion rubles. 350 billion rubles will go to agriculture, defense industries, small business, export operations, aviation and railways, he said.
"In addition, we are committing to financing the indexation of social payments, creation of new jobs and support for the regions," Interfax quoted him as saying. This would take up 1.5 trillion rubles ($41 billion), the minister said.
Kudrin also pledged to increase pensions and benefits to match inflation rates.
Putin in February said Russia would put hundreds of billions of rubles into troubled state-owned banks to get credit flowing again.
Putin said the government would inject 200 billion rubles ($5.5 billion) into state-backed lender VTB. Additionally, state-owned Vnesheconombank will get a 100 billion ruble ($2.8 billion) capital boost, and also could receive a further 100 billion rubles in subordinated loans.
The government is set to consider the revised budget on March 19, Kudrin said.
(AP)
