August 3, 2007 (LPAC)--In several cabinet-level meetings this week, Russian President Vladimir Putin and other Russian leaders focussed on the country's economic development in the near, middle, and long term. The deliberations started with a July 30 government meeting on Russia's first-ever three-year budget plan, which Putin introduced as "for the first time, so specifically and in some depth, setting forth objectives for the development of the real sector of our economy."

Putin said, according to transcripts posted on the Kremlin web site, that by 2010 an 8.89 trillion-ruble budget will incorporate "new principles of planning revenues and spending," including the use of some of the petroleum export-derived Stabilization Fund for purposes within the country. According to monetarist dogmas the Stabilization Fund has been largely invested in foreign government bonds. The new budget directs a portion of those resources into pension-support schemes, while still not going full-force into the type of domestic infrastructure investment demanded by Academy of Sciences economists, including the late Academician Dmitri Lvov.

In budget spending, Putin said, "We have started to pay more attention to the real sector of the economy. The budget line that has risen the most is support for the national economy: for innovation programs, infrastructure, the aircraft industry, shipbuilding, and electric power, including nuclear power. This budget line has increased by 44.4 percent, to the level of 718 billion rubles to support the national economy. Within that, the fastest rising line is spending for the nuclear industry: from 14 billion this year, to 60 billion rubles." (Currently, 26 rubles = 1 dollar).