Transcript of the start of the meeting: 

Vladimir Putin: Mr Zhirinovsky, as you know, the Government has published a programme of anti-crisis measures on its website and submitted it to the State Duma. Today we need to discuss the new version of the budget for 2009, and then immediately deal with the budgets for 2010 and 2011.

Needless to say, this and next year's budgets will be inseparably linked with the Government's anti-crisis measures. I hope that the members of your parliamentary party have already had a chance to read its main provisions. In the future, we will have to discuss it in detail. Today, I'd like to discuss with you and other leaders of parliamentary parties the general approaches and principles of our joint efforts.

Vladimir Zhirinovsky: Needless to say, we have looked at all these proposals. There is a lot of information there. We are ready to make our proposals.

There is a problem of controlling financial flows. We should think how to reorganise the Auditing Chamber to make it more powerful and independent. We should make sure that all instructions of the Ministry of Finance and the Central Bank reach the real economy. All funds invested into the economy should be used effectively.

There are other problems. We have too many companies that are registered outside Russia. Ninety percent of companies registered in Cyprus are off-shore.

We would advise businessmen to register their companies and pay taxes here. We want their money to go into our economy. Maybe, it makes sense to think about limiting the exchange of roubles into dollars. Ten years ago currency profits had to be converted into roubles by law. In this case there will be less pressure on the rouble, and there will be more roubles.

During the 1998 crisis, two countries gained advantages - the liberal Chile and the authoritarian Malaysia. They were the only ones to ban the export of capital for a certain period. That made it easier for them to overcome the crisis that had hit primarily Asia.

Now we are in a global crisis, and we have more opportunities with our economy...

Vladimir Putin: But Malaysians also had a lot of problems.

Vladimir Zhirinovsky: Every country had its share of problems.

Vladimir Putin: Prime Ministers stayed in contact at that time. Mr Badawi was very unhappy about the actions of the American partners.

Vladimir Zhirinovsky: Yes, because they didn't approve of his methods. But the main point is that Chile, a liberal country, also imposed tough restrictions on the export of capital for a certain time.

In general, foreign trade should also play a role. Our revenues were higher when we had a monopoly on foreign trade. We should keep and restore some foreign trade associations.

As for taxes, I know that the Government is not in favour of reducing VAT. However, this tax is the most difficult one to administer. It is very hard to make it work because export prices are overrated and then underrated. Some export transactions are simply false. This causes certain losses. In America they have a sales tax, and it works.

Vladimir Putin: In this case we should switch to a completely different system.

Vladimir Zhirinovsky: Yes. We should consider this.

Vladimir Putin: But this should be analysed.

Vladimir Zhirinovsky: Experts should compare the effectiveness of VAT and of a sales tax.