#1
ABOUT 15% OF ALL BUDGETARY EXPENDITURES IN 2003 TO BE ALLOCATED FOR NATIONAL DEFENSE

MOSCOW, 15 August, 2002 /from RIA Novosti correspondent Alla Isayeva/-- On Thursday Russian Finance Minister and Vice-Premier Aleksei Kudrin reported to journalists that the 2003 budget provided for 346.1 billion rubles (over 11 billion euros), which is 14.9% of all budgetary expenditures, for national defense.

According to Kudrin, national defense expenditures in the next year will grow more than all the other spending. This was related to the increase of monetary allowance for servicemen, to procurement of military equipment, to conducting scientific and research works, to army recruitment reform, to increase the number of contract servicemen.

While talking about the current financing of defense items, Kudrin reported that the state defense order was financed fully and timely. By the middle of the current year, as was planned, they financed 40 % of all the expenditures of the defense order.

At the same time, Kudrin indicated that presently the federal budget was implemented strictly according to budget revenue and expenditures approved at the beginning of the year. The Finance minister stated that "today such a mechanism of budget implementation was created that at the beginning of the year I knew all the amounts which we would spend every month and might even predict them on a daily basis."

BACK TO THE TOP    #219 CONTENTS    NEXT ARTICLE