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National Wealth Fund may be used to support some groups of the population — Putin

Putin said that the National Wealth Fund had exceeded 7% of the GDP

MOSCOW, March 18. /TASS/. Russian President Vladimir Putin does not rule out the possibility that the National Wealth Fund might be used to support some groups of the population.

Interviewed for the TASS project entitled "20 Questions with Vladimir Putin" the head of state said that the National Wealth Fund had exceeded 7% of the GDP, which allowed it to be used for investment.

"The question is what should we spend the money on? On investments, on support for certain groups of the population, and so forth. This is what our discussion is revolving around nowadays," he said.

The Russian authorities "need to fulfill a very important task - raising people's real income," he said. "We should think about the best use of the available resources which are large enough."

According to the Ministry of Finance, the National Wealth Fund (NWF) in February 2020 was up by 409 billion rubles (5.2%) to a total of 8.249 trillion rubles - an equivalent of $123.4 billion (7.3% of the GDP) as of March 1. The liquid part of the NWF at the beginning of March stood at 6.568 trillion rubles, an equivalent of $98.044 billion, or 5.8% of the 2020 GDP forecast.

Episode 16 of the video interview is available at https://putin.tass.ru/en.