Rusnano, the state nanotechnology giant, hopes to press President Barack Obama for tax breaks for Russian technology as it wraps up plans to create a $1 billion venture fund with U.S. companies to invest in Russia.

Rusnano chief Anatoly Chubais said Wednesday that his company had prepared a "concrete proposal" for President Dmitry Medvedev and Obama to discuss when the U.S. president visits Moscow next week.

"We have one absolutely concrete proposal," Chubais told reporters after making a speech to the innovation committee of the Russian Union of Entrepreneurs and Industrialists, Interfax reported

"Rusnano's initiative concerns both nanotechnologies and several other spheres," Chubais said. "We have completed quite a significant amount of work preparing for this visit."

Obama will start his three-day visit on Monday.

Chubais declined to elaborate on the proposal, but a senior Rusnano official involved with its drafting told The Moscow Times that it sought preferential U.S. treatment, including tax breaks, for Russian innovative products.

"We are asking for the most favorable treatment for our innovative products on the American market," said the official, who did not want to be identified because he was not authorized to speak to the media.

He said Rusnano was lobbying the Kremlin to raise the issue at the presidential level during Obama's visit. Medvedev has named nanotechnology as a priority industry in his drive to wean the economy off its dependency on energy.

"If there is political support at the presidential level, it will be easier for us to reach agreements with U.S. banks and funds and promote our innovative projects on the local market," the Rusnano official said.

Kremlin spokesman Alexei Pavlov said he did not have time to comment Wednesday.

It was not immediately clear how the Obama administration might respond to the Rusnano proposal.

The Rusnano official said his company wanted to build cooperation with U.S. firms in energy efficiency, medicine and other spheres. "The companies in both of our countries understand that they have to become more technologically efficient in crisis times," he said. "We know there are lots of funds in the U.S. interested in cooperating with us."

A major area of cooperation would be the $1 billion fund under which U.S. companies would help bankroll the development of new technologies in Russia. Chubais said Wednesday that Rusnano was at the final stage of negotiations on creating the fund, and its investors would include "companies from the Silicon Valley." He declined to elaborate, and the Rusnano official said he had few details about the negotiations.

Rusnano said earlier this month that it was holding negotiations with the California-based Draper Fisher Jurvetson venture fund to create a fund in which the Russians would invest $50 million.

Sasha Johnson, the official responsible for Russia at Draper Fisher Jurvetson, or DFJ, said Rusnano was interesting as a partner "as it had access to an enormous number of scientists and the famous Russian expertise." Johnson, who heads DFJ-VTB-Aurora, a U.S.-Russian venture fund through which DFJ will invest in the new fund with Rusnano, declined to put a figure on the possible investment.

Chubais said Wednesday that the U.S. venture funds market was 1.5 times bigger than Russian GDP.

"The U.S. is the world leader on investment, and we have a lot to learn from them," the other Rusnano official said. "But we have a strong scientific base, so cooperation would be mutually beneficial."

A U.S. venture fund manager said Rusnano had every chance to become a world major player should it become more flexible. "They have too many rules on where they can and can't invest, which doesn't work with the market majors," said the manager, who didn't want to be named because of the sensitivity of the issue.

Medvedev offered criticism of his own May 6, saying the creation of large, state-owned companies like Rusnano were "unlikely" to prove successful.