Russia aims to increase spending and boost growth for large-scale investment business over the next three years

[Moscow 19th Reuters]-Russian Ministry of Finance announced on the 19th that it would aim to boost economic growth by expanding spending on large-scale public investment and infrastructure development over the next three years.

This year's economic growth is expected to slow down from 2.3% last year to just over 1%. Russia aims to occupy one of the world's five major economies by 2024, and is currently desperately looking for new growth engines.

Under such circumstances, the Ministry of Finance will invest 2 trillion rubles next year, 2.3 trillion rubles in 2009, and 2.70 trillion rubles in 2010, targeting a wide range of projects from road construction to modernization of the medical system.

The ministry also indicated that the fiscal surplus expected to be 0.8% of GDP next year will shrink to 0.2% in 2010.