Speaking at a government session, Alexei Kudrin said: "We would like a bill [on a nanotechnology corporation] to be adopted before lawmakers leave for summer recess, and this fall we could take organizational steps to create a [nanotechnology] fund and ensure its capitalization."
The statement came after the president highlighted high-tech industry in his state of the nation address earlier Thursday, saying research in nanotechnology, which promises advances in medicine, space research, telecommunications and weapons production, should receive priority funding.
"The government should provide the necessary funding to arrange this work in terms of technical equipment, staff and organizational support," Vladimir Putin said.
Kudrin said a corporation would bring additional funds to the sector, which would also be financed via a special budget program that envisioned $965 million from 2008 to 2010.
Russia's First Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Ivanov, who oversees industrial development and is seen as a candidate to succeed Putin in elections next spring, said Thursday a series of nanotechnology research centers would also be set up under the program.
Ivanov is also expected to head a council on nanotechnology, a promising science that works with microscopic particles and has so far mainly been confined to the laboratory.
