Moscow. April 3. INTERFAX — The Supervisory Board of State Corporation ‘Bank for Development and Foreign Economic Affairs (Vnesheconombank)’ (VEB) approved a development strategy for 2008–2012 in accordance with which the Bank is to increase its loan portfolio to 850 billion rubles by the end of 2012.

The decision was made at a meeting of VEB’s Supervisory Board on Thursday. The meeting was conducted by Russian Prime Minister Victor Zubkov.

The press service of the Russian Government said that the meeting made a decision to approve a strategy submitted by VEB and finalize to work out specific mechanisms for its implementation taking into account the recommendations made.

Under the strategy, Vnesheconombank is to increase its loan portfolio to 850 billion rubles by the end of 2012. By the same period the share of projects within a public private partnership scheme would amount to 30% and the Bank‘s size of loan portfolio for supporting small and medium-sized business would amount to 42 billion rubles.

«We’ll do our utmost to make these substantial funds be used as effectively as possible and become an efficient instrument for diversifying our domestic economy and moving it to an innovation path of development," said Vnesheconombank Chairman Vladimir Dmitriev at the end of the meeting.