Russian officials are meeting today to discuss how to divide 245 billion roubles that have been set aside for "anti-crisis efforts" in 2010. According to First Deputy Prime Minister Igor Shuvalov, 195 billion rubles were already designated, added to which will be 50 billion roubles from this year that were not used.

Shuvalov told reporters that today's discussions will focus on how to divide the funds and "where they will be earmarked".

Meanwhile, it has emerged that the Russian finance ministry placed just five billion roubles of temporarily free budget funds in five-week deposits in commercial banks today, from the 42.9 billion roubles on offer. 


Vladimir Bragin from Trust revealed to Reuters that the average interest rate was the same as the cut-off rate and was set at 9.27 per cent.


"There is no great demand for liquidity from the banks of the first and second tier that are allowed to take part in the budget auctions, and the money market rates are also low," he observed.


At Russia's previous budget auction on 15th December, the ministry placed all 50 billion roubles of free budget funds in six-week deposits.