RDIF recapitalization to be conducted at 'old' exchange rate - Ulyukayev
KUALA LUMPUR. Aug 25 (Interfax) - Recapitalization of the Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF) will be carried out based on the ruble exchange rate in effect in years past, Economic Development Minister Alexei Ulyukayev said.
RDIF's management company was registered in June 2011 as a 100% subsidiary of VEB . The initial capitalization plans stipulated a contribution of $10 billion over five years. In the past, the annual contributions - $2 billion - amounted to a little over 60 billion rubles a year, but would total 140 billion rubles at the current exchange rate.
Asked whether plans to raise RDIF capital to $10 billion rubles are being maintained, Ulyukayev said: "We have a simpler task today: so that the 2016 budget includes at least some money to recapitalize RDIF."
"We have a fundamental agreement that the recapitalization will be conducted in principle at a pace of $2 billion a year by that [old] exchange rate, that is, 66 billion rubles. In the event actual projects are being financed and residual amounts remain, there is an agreed size, in that case that [the amount] will need to be looked at," Ulyukayev told journalists.
"I think there ought to be a conditional provision in the budget law. That was the agreement. We are discussing the participation of the Finance Ministry. This is the Finance Ministry's idea: no financing from the budget until residual amounts are available. It is reasonable - now important - that this be properly formulated in the budget law," said Ulyukayev, who is a member of RDIF's supervisory board.