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Russian minister promises new measures on financial crisis

MOSCOW - Russia will soon take a new round of measures against the financial crisis, the country's top official for economic policy said in an interview broadcast Sunday, amid growing fears of a broad slowdown.

‘We believe sufficient measures have been undertaken for the first stage.... We are currently developing a special programme for the next moves,’ Deputy Prime Minister Igor Shuvalov said in the interview on Vesti-24 television.

‘This programme will be approved in the next few weeks and we will understand how to act on different fronts, in various sectors, in various blocs. This will be a detailed programme,’ Shuvalov said.

Shuvalov also promised that a decision to insure private bank accounts worth up to 700,000 rubles (about 26,000 dollars or 20,000 euros) would be fulfilled, the Interfax news agency reported.

The Russian government has already pledged close to 200 billion dollars to ease the effects of the crisis, which has seen Moscow's stock markets lose about three-quarters of their value since they posted record highs in May.

The damage has begun spilling over into the so-called ‘real economy,’ with steelmakers announcing layoffs and production cuts and property developers putting the brakes on big construction projects.