The Government of the Russian Federation is taking the necessary measures to enhance the stability of the banking system, Mr Shuvalov said. The Agency for Housing Mortgage Lending has been allocated 60 billion roubles to refinance loans issued earlier.

“We have long been stressing that public property should be used exclusively for the benefit of the entire society and help to tackle national challenges rather than enrich certain individuals or, as we used to say, “a group of comrades”. In this connection we have decided to reduce substantially the number of the so-called Federal Unitary Enterprises, or FGUPs.”

They discussed trade and economic matters, energy partnership, and the performance of the Intergovernmental Commission.

"To help people who have lost or are about to lose their jobs, we are launching regional employment programmes that are funded by the federal budget by 95%. We believe that regional and local municipal budgets should also contribute to this effort. However, realising that the incomes of the regions will also decline, we have decided to finance these undertakings almost fully. A total of 43.7 billion roubles have been allocated from the federal budget for this purpose."

“We realise that the programme’s success depends on productive cooperation between federal and regional authorities,” Mr Shuvalov said.

Following the meeting, the Commission decided to raise the lower rate of customs duty on imports of cane raw sugar from $140 to $165 per metric ton.

Sergei Sobyanin told the meeting that over 400 billion roubles’ worth of federal-budget allocations would be spent on streamlining the tax policy. He said the funding would be used to streamline profit tax, value-added tax and other tax categories.