Zee Beam News

ST. PETERSBURG, May 25 (RIA Novosti) - Russia's private sector capital inflow and outflow have matched each other for the first time, the finance minister said Thursday. "The capital outflow balance reached zero in the private sector," Alexei Kudrin told a St. Petersburg forum of government borrowers. Kudrin said private capital outflow had reached $23-25 billion at one time in the last five years, but added that Russia had created favorable conditions for investment in the Russian economy, which had helped reduce capital outflow. Nevertheless, the finance minister said Russia still had to resolve some problems in the near future. In particular, the government had to start three-year budget planning and preparing three-year forecasts for the country's monetary policy. Kudrin said Russia would completely liberalize its foreign exchange regulation from July 1. The minister added that Russia now had a stable government finance system, allowing the government to liberalize capital flows completely.