Russian government outlines US$35b anti-crisis plan

[MOSCOW] The Russian government published a 2.34 trillion rouble (US$34.8 billion) plan on Wednesday to address an acute economic and financial crisis prompted by a collapse in oil prices and Western sanctions over the Ukraine crisis.

The plan remained subject to change, according to a statement, and it said the costs it had given were not final.

In the plan, the government said it would collect proposals for creating a 'bad bank' for problematic banking assets by Jan 30.

It would also provide state development bank VEB with 300 billion roubles from the National Wealth Fund to support lending to the real economy.

The government also said it would increase the size of state guarantees for selected investment projects to 200 billion roubles.

It had earlier announced that it would boost banking sector capital by one trillion roubles via OFZ treasury bonds issued late last year and by a further 250 billion roubles from the National Wealth Fund, one of Russia's two sovereign funds.

REUTERS