UPDATE: Duma passes bill freezing pension savings till '24 in 1st reading

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MOSCOW, Oct 22 (PRIME) -- The State Duma, Russian parliament's lower chamber, passed in the first reading on Thursday a bill freezing the accumulative part of pensions savings until the end of 2023.

The government froze the accumulative part of pension savings for 2014 and 2015, and used 6% of the accumulative part to pay pensions to the current retirees. In December 2015, the measure was prolonged for 2016 in order to gain 342.2 billion rubles for the budget, and later extended for 2018 and then until 2020 and further until 2021.

Deputy Finance Minister Anton Drozdov said that the ministry expects to present a bill on voluntary pension savings in 2021. "The draft law is not simple. We presume that we must reach consensus on the issue in the society. And, as it was said, there were several concepts of the project and in the last one, the savings were only voluntary," the official said.

According to the financial feasibility study, the bill will cut the federal budget payments to the Pension Fund by 669.3 billion rubles in 2023.

(77.0322 rubles – U.S. $1)

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