Russian Finance Ministry offers to reduce cost of anti-crisis plan

The Russian government has only 120 billion rubles in the anti-crisis fund out of 250 billion rubles needed to support the economy.

The Finance Ministry notes that the government's anti-crisis fund has 65 billion rubles now (according to the budget law). It can receive another 55 billion rubles in April, when the Federal Treasury will direct unclaimed balances of the 2015 budget to the fund, the Kommersant newspaper cited the head of ministry, Anton Siluanov, as saying.

The minister added that the government can allocate 120 billion rubles without changes in the budget to the current year, while it has already allocated 35 billion rubles from the crisis fund. 

The Finance Ministry offered to reduce the cost of the anti-crisis fund by 17.1 billion rubles to 120 billion rubles (this list should also include the costs of decisions already taken related to Crimea and Ukraine).

The Ministry of Finance suggests maintaining funding for engineering, a large-scale decrease in spending on the healthcare system (from 45.8 billion rubles to 13 billion rubles), and support for exports through Vnesheconombank, Roseximbank and the Russian export center (from 25.3 billion to 9 billion rubles). 

In addition, the ministry insists on the creation of a reserve of 34.9 billion rubles for unforeseen expenses.