The officials have found the way to support the development of advanced MS-21 passenger aircraft. Irkut Corporation intends to obtain a credit from Sberbank to the amount of $1 billion (as non-budgetary financing), Kommersant reports.
The proposal on reassignment of federal funds in favor of Irkut Corporation (for implementation of MS-21 project) is stipulated in a letter of Deputy Minister of Economic Development, Oleg Savelyev, to Vnesheconombank.
It was assumed that the cost of MS-21 project will be about 190 billion rubles. At that 70 billion rubles (around 40%) should have been provided by the government. The adjusted project budget is $3,9 billion, Ministry of Industry and Trade reported. At that the total share of state support in the project may increase to 69% (55% - funds allocated in the network of Federal Target Program “Development of civil aircraft in Russia for 2002-2010 and the period until 2015"), said in the Savelyev’s letter. 15% will be allocated by Irkut Corporation from its own funds, the rest 26% will be obtained from non-budgetary sources.
Sberbank will provide non-budgetary funds for the project. Irkut has already agreed with the bank on obtaining the credit to the amount of $1,04 billion for a period of 10 years, said in the document. However, Sberbank has agreed to allocate the funds upon condition of provision the government guarantee to the amount of $400 million in a foreign currency "in order to minimize the project risks and decrease the cost of project financing". Meanwhile, according to Oleg Savelyev, the provision of state guarantees in a foreign currency for loans or debentures obtained for implementation of investment projects is not included in the federal budget for 2013 and the planning period until 2015.
Ministry of Industry and Trade suggests reassignment of federal funds intended for provision of state guarantee for VEB’s banker guarantee provided as a security for activities of its subsidiary EKSAR (Russian export credit and investment agency).
In late 2012 VEB provided EKSAR with its banker guarantee to the amount of $10 billion for the period until December 31st 2032. In addition, Dmitry Medvedev instructed the agencies to consider the possibility of providing additional credit guarantees to the amount of 500 billion rubles for EKSAR in order to support the Russian exporters of military products during a period until 2020.
A source close to VEB said that the bank does not support the offer submitted by the Ministry of Industry and Trade and VEB has already discussed the matter with the Ministry of Economic Development. "The corresponding letter was sent to the ministry on Monday. It is stated in the letter that it is impossible to implement the offer because such possibility is not provided by the budget for 2013",— the source said. The Ministry of Industry and Trade, in its own turn, noted that its offer assumes introduction of amendments to the budget for 2013 - the additional threshold in foreign currency to the amount of $400 million intended for support of MS-21 project may be obtained by decreasing the amount of state guarantees intended for supporting the export".