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The Bailout Plan Didn’t Match the Schedule
Elaboration of another bailout plan of the government has been shelved for two weeks. Prime Minister Vladimir Putin ordered yesterday to make out another anti-crisis program by December 20 (the previous date was December 5), the bureaucrats will set to the anti-crisis budget calculations for 2009 and for 2009 through 2012 no sooner than December 16 (December 9). So far, the cabinet has no basic document for calculation. The Economic Development Ministry hasn’t provided the outlook recognizing results of the anti-crisis battle in September through November.
In line with expectations, Prime Minister shelved for two weeks yesterday the launch of the anti-crisis budget efforts – the sitting of government’s commission for budget projecting was put off from December 9 to December 16, and the new bailout plant will be presented December 20 instead of December 5.
The prime reason of delay is the absence of macroeconomic outlook elaborated by the Economic Development Ministry, which was due to reach the cabinet December 1.
The preliminary outlook is ready but it lacks the signature of Economic Development Minister Elvira Nabiullina. Deputy Economic Development Minister Andrei Klepach told Vedomosti December 1 that he proposed to stick to the negative scenario when elaborating the 2009 budget. Under that scenario, the GDP will step up 3.5 percent instead of 6.7 percent, the ruble will depreciate from 24.7 ruble/$ to between 32 ruble/$ and 35 ruble/$ and the inflation will surge to between 12.5 percent and 15 percent instead of the planned 8.5 percent.
But all those figures will form no official outlook unless they are signed by Nabiullina. “We won’t submit the outlook today. The document will be provided to the government before the end of this week,” a spokesman of the Economic Development Ministry said yesterday without giving the details. Klepach refused to comment.
Meanwhile, the government and the Finance Ministry need the outlook to proceed to further calculations. The available variant of the budget forecast appears optimistic enough. But in terms of policy, the mere acknowledgement of inevitable two-fold reduction in the GDP growth and the need to take it into account in the budget plan means that the actions that the Economic Development Ministry recommenced in September to November to confront the crisis weren’t efficient.
www.kommersant.com
All the Article in Russian as of Dec. 03, 2008
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