The government is almost finished creating an agency to insure export loans in a measure aimed at boosting the country’s trade, Economic Development Minister Elvira Nabiullina said Friday.
“We have come to the final stage of the creation of an export agency,” Nabiullina told the State Duma, adding that she had already discussed the project with the Finance Ministry.
Nabiullina said the creation of the agency would in part help to increase the number of instruments that support Russian enterprises exporting manufactured products.
First Deputy Prime Minister Igor Shuvalov ordered the Economic Development Ministry in May to prepare proposals on the creation of such an agency.
The Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs and Vneshekonombank proposed creating the new agency on the base of Roseximbank, a subsidiary of VEB.
Nabiullina said the efficiency of Russia’s export policy depends on long-term tariff regulation and must be coordinated with the development strategies of businesses.
She also said the government should continue subsidizing export loans. “The mechanisms used to support the manufacturing sector should be more extensive. There is only 6 billion rubles left of the funds earmarked for providing subsidies for export loans in 2009, and this will only satisfy a third of what is needed,” Nabiullina said.
Earlier this year Prime Minister Vladimir Putin ordered the ministry to hasten its work on the creation of the export agency. Deputy Economic Development Minister Andrei Slepnyov told a news conference in October that the agency would be capitalized to the tune of $1 billion.
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