MOSCOW, October 12 (AVN) - Commission of the State Duma lower house of Russian parliament will hold its next session to consider closed items of the federal budget 2001.
A group of deputies of the Defence, Security, Industry, Building and Knowledge-Intensive Technologies, Budget and Taxes committees will have to clear out expenditures for national defence and law-enforcement activities before second hearing of the draft federal budget 2001.
"We are very much dissatisfied with the amount of finance particularly for R&D works and buying new ordnance, Yuri Maslyukov, chairman of the Industry, Building and Knowledge-Intensive Technologies Committee, told the Military News Agency.
Such level of financing makes rearmament of the Strategic Nuclear Forces impossible, but this is the priority after the Duma ratified the START-2 Treaty, Maslyukov said. The same can be said about space programmes, purchases of aircraft, ordnance, etc, he added.
The committee insists that the spending on R&D and ordnance purchases should be increased at least on RUR40bn (USD1.5bn) within the "National Defence" item of the budget, Maslyukov stressed.