PRESS: Govt wants to approve investments of all state companies

MOSCOW, Jan 28 (PRIME) -- The Russian government will toughen control over spending of infrastructure monopolies by approving their investment programs, Vedomosti business daily reported on Monday quoting sources.

Currently, the government sets tariffs for Russian Railways, gas giant Gazprom’s prices for gas pumping, tariffs for oil and oil product pumping of Transneft, and tariffs for power transmission over grids of Rosseti, among other things. Government officials are also members of the boards of directors of these companies, but the government controls only investment programs of Russian Railways and Rosseti.

In October 2018, Energy Minister Alexander Novak suggested the government get the right to approve investment programs of all infrastructure monopolies, because it decides on their tariffs and should decide how much they invest and how much they pay in dividends.

Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Kozak suggested that infrastructure monopolies should not pay dividends using profits received from operations that are regulated by the government, and use the money to finance investment programs instead, sources told Vedomosti.

Kozak’s representative Ilya Dzhus declined to comment. Raiffeisenbank analyst Alexei Polishchuk said the initiative should not have a serious impact on operations of state companies, as the government is already able to control the investment program of Gazprom as a major shareholder.

The government expects to receive almost 590 billion rubles in dividends from state companies in 2019, 626 billion rubles in 2020, and 675 billion rubles in 2021. Audit Chamber’s Head Alexei Kudrin said before that the government may receive up to 70% less dividends than expected judging by results of previous budget cycles.

(65.9170 rubles – U.S. $1)

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