The Russian Economic Development Ministry has drawn up a draft plan for a new fund to help encourage investment in Russia, business daily Vedomosti reported on Thursday.
President Dmitry Medvedev ordered the government to develop an "idea of setting up a special investment fund, in which government funds would be supplemented by private capital" at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum in June.
The fund should handle the co-financing of prospective projects and attract strategic investors, Medvedev said.
The newspaper reported that the plan had been presented to First Deputy Prime Minister Igor Shuvalov. The Economic Development Ministry said the new investment fund should have more power than the already existing one.
"It must be understood that the new fund is not a second investment fund but the first fund of direct investment," the author of the draft plan said.
With a startup capital of 20 billion rubles ($671 million) to be increased to 40 billion ($1.3 billion) in three years, it would finance infrastructure projects and energy companies.
VTB Capital and Gazprombank may be the main investor in the fund, a source in the government said.
Medvedev has made economic and technological modernization a focal point of his agenda and is seeking to make the country a more attractive place for foreign and domestic investment.
MOSCOW, August 5 (RIA Novosti)
