Russia announces anti-crisis plan worth billions of dollars … – Polish Radio

Russia announces anti-crisis plan worth billions of dollars … – Polish Radio

  Vladimir Putin ordered the cut, but not in the defense and the social sphere , photo: PAP / EPA SERGEI ILNITSKY
 

The plan focuses mainly on the support of banks and large companies to help them survive the immediate effects of the crisis at the expense of long-term development programs. Additional funds will be also used to increase the benefits due to higher than expected inflation; this latter objective is to be allocated 188 billion rubles.

– The plan is a kind of cushion to prevent rapid deterioration of the situation in Russia and provide support to several major businesses and social support – Sberbank chief economist said Julia Ceplajewa.

The entire plan is 2.3 trillion rubles. 1.5 billion is to be directed to the recapitalization of banks – one trillion rubles will come from government bonds and 550 billion rubles from the National Welfare Fund (FNB).

This amount includes 300 billion rubles for Vneshekonombank, or state corporation which is the equivalent of Western banks for reconstruction and development.

Many experts believe that it is a fraction of the amount that Russia will have to spend to keep the banking sector on the surface – Reuters notes.

On Tuesday, Finance Minister Anton Siłuanow said that the anti-crisis plan will not increase expenditure, since the additional funds will be obtained from the budget reserve and savings in other areas.

According to the plan, the government has to reduce by 2015 the majority of planned spending by 10 per cent., with the exception of defense, social spending and repayment of debt with the aim of balancing the budget by 2017.

In November Siłuanow announced that Russia is losing about $ 40 billion annually due to sanctions imposed by the West and 90 $ 100 billion due to the drop in oil prices.

A month later, President Vladimir Putin, in the worst scenario, on the way out of the crisis, Russia will need about two years.

As a result, involvement in the conflict in eastern Ukraine, the European Union and the US imposed sanctions on Russia, including economic, among others, in the form of restrictions on access to capital markets, Russian banks and companies to the state of the oil sector and defense. Russia’s economy also weakened the drop in oil prices; revenues from oil and gas exports account for more than half of the revenue of the budget of the country.

CRISIS IN UKRAINE – special service & gt; & gt; & gt;

The sanctions the EU will be extended until the end of 2015. The decision in this case to take to the EU Heads of State on Thursday an emergency meeting in Brussels.

Originally restrictions were to be extended to September, but the document which reached Reuters that they will last at least until the end of this year .

The EU sanctions against Russia, introduced for the annexation of the Crimea, include, inter alia lockout and travel restrictions within the Union of Russian officials and other people associated with those events.

PAP / and