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Freezing financing investment projects from National Wealth Fund not in talks — minister

Vedomosti wrote earlier that the Finance Ministry proposed to freeze the funding of investment projects from the National Welfare Fund

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ULAN-UDE, September 7. /TASS/. Freezing part of the financing of investment projects from the National Wealth Fund is not under consideration, First Deputy Prime Minister Igor Shuvalov told journalists on Wednesday.

Vedomosti wrote earlier that the Finance Ministry proposed to freeze the funding of investment projects from the National Welfare Fund. According to the newspaper, this idea is contained in the materials of the Ministry for the budget meeting with Shuvalov.

"It was not discussed yet. Yesterday, we talked about Russian Railways being ready to return a part of the money from the National Wealth Fund, because they held a successful placement. There was absolutely no talks about freezing something to freeze," Shuvalov said.

Senior Vice-President for Economics and Finance for Russian Railways Vadim Mikhailov said earlier that the company could replace the money from the National Wealth Fund, necessary for the purchase of locomotives in 2016, due to the placement of ruble bonds. It was reported later about the placement of 42 series bonds of Russian Railways for 15 bln rubles ($232.68 mln).Russian Railways representative told TASS that the company plans to close so the need to finance procurement of locomotives for 40 bln rubles ($620.5 mln). Russian Railways have placed ruble bonds for 25 bln rubles ($387.8 mln) for this purpose. In total in 2016, it was planned to allocate about 40 bln rubles ($620.5 mln) from the National Wealth Fund to purchase locomotives.

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