The government has approved a program that aims to double state investment in the economy by 1997, a top economics official said Thursday.


Deputy Economics Minister Yakov Urinson said after a government meeting that the strategy was based on Russia's long-term needs and would include "economic stabilization and a lowering of inflation."


Urinson also said the government will refuse to grant loans to enterprises unless they can come up with about two-thirds of the money from outside sources. Such a policy was first broached last year in a series of presidential decrees.


Government investment currently amounts to about 1 percent of gross domestic product, or about 18.8 trillion rubles ($4.3 billion), Interfax quoted Urinson as saying after a press briefing.


That figure will reach 2 percent of GDP by 1997, Urinson said, with 60 percent of the incremental funds devoted to social programs, 30 percent for investment tenders and the remainder for infrastructure projects.


Urinson said the government now provides 30 percent of the country's economic investment while the private sector provides 70 percent, the reverse of the situation six years ago. But he criticized what he called the temporary nature of nonstate investment.