World financial crisis

French strategic fund to be worth 20 billion euros, Russia to give IMF 785 million

Article published on the 2008-11-20 Latest update 2008-11-20 12:25 TU

Sarkozy at a military ceremony yesterday
(Photo: Reuters)

France's strategic investment fund, established to shore up key French companies, will have 20 billion euros at its disposal, President Nicolas Sarkozy announced on Thursday. Russia's Prime Minister Vladimr Putin announced that his country will give 785 million euros to the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

Sarkozy made the announcement on a visit at aerospace supplier Daher, which is to receive 85 million euros from the fund.

The amount announced was far below the 100 billion euros initially suggested as startup capital last month when Sarkozy announced his French version of a sovereign wealth fund.

The former head of pharmaceutical giant Sanofi-Aventis, Jean-Francois Dehecq, and Patricia Barbizet, the chief executive of the private investment group Artemis, were named presidents of the fund's two managing committees.

Sarkozy's office has announced that he is to organise an international summit on reforming capitalism along with Britain's former Prime Minister Tony Blair.

Foreign politicians and economists will be on the guest-list. Blair said that the conference, to be entitled "A New World: Values, Development and Regulation", would make a vital contribution to efforts to come to grips with the economic downturn.

In Russia former President Vladimir Putin, who is now Prime Minister, announced on Thursday that his country will give 785 million euros to the IMF, lend 1.6 billion euros to neighbouring Belarus and offer China and India credits to buy Russian goods.

Putin told a conference of his United Russia party that the govenrment "will do everything that depends on us" to prevent a repetition of the financial collapses that hit the country in 1991 and 1998.