Yesterday, the Economic Development Ministry proposed a new anti-crisis action plan in the economy this year to the Russian government, the State Secretary, Deputy Minister Oleg Fomichev said.
"We offer to find part of the financing within the budget, another part in the framework of changes to the budget," RIA Novosti quoted him as saying.
The volume of financing of the plan from all sources amounts to 827.72 billion rubles. Thus, 207.4 billion rubles will be taken from the anti-crisis fund, 446.87 billion rubles directly from the Russian budget, another 39.8 billion rubles from the National Welfare Fund. On some measures, the issue of sources of funding has not been resolved yet, in particular this applies to an amount of 133.65 billion rubles.
The director of the center for regional reforms studies of the Institute of Applied Economic Research of RANHiGS, Alexander Deryugin, explained in an interview with the correspondent of Vestnik Kavkaza that, in fact, the anti-crisis plan implies less funding than 827 billion rubles, since part of this money was already envisaged in the budget.
"Therefore, the effect these additional activities will have on the economy will not be as significant as the anti-crisis measures were in 2009, when 1 trillion rubles of assistance were additionally allocated for the economy," he explained.
The expert noted that currently the government has very different financial possibilities to support the economy. "Therefore, our anticrisis plan is more modest, and its impact on the economy will also be much less. To a much greater extent, we depend on oil prices and on external geopolitical factors, rather than on the effects of the implementation of the anti-crisis plan," Deriugin stated.
The Associate Professor of the department of stock markets and financial engineering of RANHiGS, Vasily Yakimkin, believes that the amount, included in the plan is not large enough: Ideally, it would be necessary to send several trillion rubles. "On the other hand, it is good that at least this amount is allocated. And it is good that any action in this direction is being made," he noted.
The expert hopes that support will be provided primarily to the real sector of the economy, industry, to improve the situation in employment and prevent unemployment and to implement the policy of import substitution more effectively. "We should be engaged in technical re-equipment, we need to throw all the forces at the real sector," Yakimkin stressed.
However, he thinks that most likely the government will send half of the amount to support the banking sector.
