Govt should spend its reserves, if it wants to expand project financing - Kudrin
MOSCOW. May 24 (Interfax) - The Russian government, if it thinks it is necessary to increase the limit on the preferential project financing instrument, should activate its own reserves, and not demand them from the Central Bank, Alexei Kudrin said.
In 2015 as part of a program for project financing, 42 projects for a total cost of 347.3 billion rubles were selected (the volume of requested credit resources was 235.5 billion rubles). As at April 22, authorized banks provided 88.6 billion rubles in credit funds for the financing of selected projects, of which the Central Bank refinanced 82.8 billion rubles. The Central Bank's entire program amounts to 100 billion rubles, and the Central Bank already stated that it is not planning to increase it, despite the repeated requests of the Economic Development Ministry. In the budget for 2016 the limit was set for state guarantees at the level of 2015 - 60 billion rubles (this allows for issuing credits for a total sum of 240 billion rubles), but the selection of projects for participation in the program in 2016 was not carried out, which is connected with the lack of a decision by the Central Bank on increasing the limit for the program. Economic Development Minister Alexei Ulyukayev recently asked Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev to hold a meeting on this issue, in order to resolve the dispute between the ministry and the Central Bank.
The former finance minister, who was recently appointed as the deputy chairman of the Presidential Economic Council, is closer to the Central Bank's position in this dispute.
"This [expansion of project financing] is not the role of the Central Bank. Civilized central banks do not participate in such a type of policy. We have this as a type of compromise," he told journalists on Monday.
"If the government thinks such a policy is necessary, then should take 100 billion-200 billion rubles from its own 4 trillion rubles of reserves and allocate [this money] towards these purposes. This is the responsibility of the government - to support investments in this or that manner. The government has such resources. I think that the government should correctly distribute them. It is allocating them either to the budget deficit or to investments - this is a government matter," Kudrin said.