Russian President Dmitry Medvedev instructed the government to speed up the creation of an agency to manage the country's public debt, the assets of the Reserve Fund and the National Welfare Fund (NWF), according to a list of instructions posted on Friday on the Kremlin website.

“Accelerate consideration of the issue of creating a body to manage the public debt of the Russian Federation, the assets of the Reserve Fund and the National Welfare Fund,” the message says.

The deadline for execution of the order is March 1, and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has been appointed responsible for its implementation .

The Ministry of Finance previously noted the need to create an agency that will manage Russia's assets and debt. It was planned that it would become the state-controlled OJSC Russian Financial Agency (RFA).

As stated in the draft debt policy strategy for 2012-2014 published in August of this year, this institution is assigned, on the one hand, the role of a “front office” responsible for interaction with investors and other participants in financial markets. Its activities will be designed to form and maintain an adequate perception by the investment community of Russia's credit risk.

On the other hand, in the future, RFA will take over the functions of the main consultant to the Ministry of Finance on optimizing the structure and reducing the costs of repaying and servicing public debt, minimizing interest and currency risks of the federal budget.

It is planned that RFA will carry out internal and external government borrowings on behalf of Russia, as well as conduct transactions with securities on the secondary market to optimize the structure of the government debt portfolio

Medvedev demanded to consider the creation of an agency to manage Russia's public debt by March 1 - Gazeta.Ru