The government may create a fund for toxic assets, First Deputy Prime Minister Igor Shuvalov said Wednesday during a meeting at Skolkovo business school, in a turnaround from his previous position on the policy.

"It was discussed [during a government commission meeting] that mechanisms for isolating toxic assets could be provided for in addition to capitalizing the financial system and insuring credit risk," Shuvalov said. In February, he dismissed the idea, saying it would entail a high risk of corruption.

Shuvalov also outline a government a pilot program slated to start this summer that will establish an electronic market for state purchases.

"The new system will feature small lots [of purchases] and will be completely transparent and allow the purchases to be made electronically," Shuvalov said at a round table, which included Troika Dialog head Ruben Vardanyan and Alexander Abramov, president of Evraz Group.

Three trial programs will be started on exchanges in Moscow and Tatarstan, as well as through Sberbank. The program will cover the whole country starting January 2010, he said.

"We think that there is a new opportunity right now -- a new window for changing the relationship to entrepreneurship in the country, to view it as a class that sufficiently and quickly responds to changing conditions," he said.

The government announced last month that it would make 4 trillion rubles ($120 billion) worth of purchases from domestic companies this year, 800 billion rubles of which are to come from small businesses. State purchases have been promised for a plethora of goods, ranging from nesting dolls to vehicles.