The minister complimented the budget drafting team, and those who got the budget through the Cabinet and parliament.

He called military control and supervisory bodies to closely monitor conscription offices all-round funding, implementation of a federal programme to shift the Armed Forces to contract service, and government efforts to overtake R&D financing.

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Next years budget was drafted with a reform recently launched to streamline budgetary relations, pointed out Lyubov Kudelina, ministerial economic and financial service chief. The reform promises to make government expenditures more effective and orient them on the end result, she added.

Among other key issues on the session agenda were military secrecy guarantees and the ways to enhance them. The conferees summed up their work with related resolutions.

Next years draft budget earmarks slightly more than 186.9 billion roubles for national defence (todays official rate is R28.27/US$1). Of that, 62.8 billion roubles will go to arms R&D, 112.3 billion to purchase pioneer military technologies, and 11.8 billion for arms and materiel maintenance.

As Mr. Ivanov announced to a conference of top ministerial officers earlier this month, 40 billion roubles out of total allocations will go to the landed troops, and 20 billion to the Navy. A remaining 15.4 billion will be spent on radioelectronic and other intelligence, reconnaissance, health services, logistics, land surveying, and electronic technologies.

The minister expects next years allocations to suffice for all endeavours to update army and naval arsenals and equipment on a federal armament programme for 2001-10.

This years army and naval armament and equipment allocations made 148 billion roubles, 113 billion the year before, and a scanty 80 billion, 2002.

MOSCOW, November 26 (RIA Novosti)