Federation Council passes bill on National Wealth Fund investment

MOSCOW, Dec 16 (PRIME) -- The Federation Council, the Russian parliament’s upper house, on Wednesday approved a bill that allows the government to invest money from the National Wealth Fund in precious metals.

Currently, the government is allowed to place the fund’s money in foreign currencies and debt securities of foreign countries, on deposits and accounts with banks, VEB.RF, and the central bank, in the debt and equities of companies that implement self-sustaining infrastructure projects, and on capital injections into the Russian Direct Investment Fund.

The bill allows the government to place the fund’s money on deposits and accounts with the central bank in precious metals.

The bill also includes several other amendments to the Budget Code, one of which doubles the threshold for construction subsidies from the federal budget with a government’s decision to 3 billion rubles from 1.5 billion rubles. If a subsidy is below the threshold, it is disbursed with an act signed by the federal treasurer.

(73.4453 rubles – U.S. $1)

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