The Finance Ministry said Tuesday that it had reached an agreement with the Economic Development and Trade Ministry on the source of financing for the state venture fund, clearing the last obstacle for its launch.
The venture fund, set up to help diversify the economy away from oil and gas, will be created using money taken from the state investment fund, said Andrei Saiko, a spokesman for the Finance Ministry, without providing any details.
A spokeswoman for the Economic Development and Trade Ministry said she could neither confirm nor deny that an agreement had been reached.
The 15 billion ruble ($557 million) fund, also known as the fund of funds, has been set up to help spawn new high-technology businesses. To minimize the risk of corruption, a dozen independently run sub-funds will select the projects to receive grants. The federal government, together with private partners, will invest in venture capital funds on a 50-50 basis.
Disagreement over the source of financing has been the main issue holding up the start of the venture fund, Economic Development and Trade Minister German Gref told President Vladimir Putin on Friday.
Gref's ministry has advocated using the federal budget to support venture projects, while the Finance Ministry preferred to draw on the resources of the state investment fund, designed to finance infrastructure projects.
The $2.6 billion investment fund is set to quadruple after Putin said earlier this week that the $7.7 billion saved through early repayment of the country's foreign debt to the Paris Club of creditor nations should be spent on infrastructure. The money will be injected into the fund in installments over the course of next three years, said Svetlana Suleimanova, a spokeswoman for Gref's ministry.
The government last month announced a shortlist of twelve infrastructure projects vying for state support. The final decision is expected later this summer, with the first beneficiaries set to receive financing as early as September, Gref said Friday.
