MOSCOW, September 15 (RIA Novosti) – The remainder of Russia's 2014 budget reserve will be used to form an anti-crisis reserve for this year, which could be used in 2015 as well, Russian Finance Minister Anton Siluanov said Monday.
"We intend to use the remainder of this year's reserve, plus the outstanding budget allocations, to form the anti-crisis reserve for this year, which could be used next year, provided we make all the planned corrections to the budget legislation," Siluanov said.
The minister noted that of the 243 billion ruble ($6.4 billion) reserve, at least 100 billion rubles ($2.6 billion) have been saved and this money "will go into next year's reserve, which we will use to help our companies."
"This could be done either this year, or next year," Siluanov added.
Last week, the Russian government promised to offer support to companies and financial institutions targeted by new Western sanctions. Russian Economic Development Minister Alexei Ulyukayev said the support measures could include a preferred customs regime, direct budget allocations, the use of funds from Russia's Pension Fund or the National Prosperity Fund.
On September 12, the United States Department of Treasury confirmed that it was expanding sanctions against Russian companies, and increasing the number of sanctioned Russian entities in the financial, energy and defense sectors.
On the same day, new European Union sanctions against Moscow over its alleged role in the Ukrainian crisis came into force.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has warned that using sanctions as an instrument of foreign policy is not effective and never yields any results, warning that sanctions cause certain damage to those using this measure.
