Russia's PM designate Fradkov names Zhukov as deputy

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Wednesday, March 03, 2004

Russia's PM designate Fradkov names Zhukov as deputy

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Russia's Prime Minister designate Mikhail Fradkov said Tuesday that he would pick highly respected liberal economist and veteran legislator Alexander Zhukov as his first deputy prime minister, in an announcement that was warmly welcomed by investors and most of the political elite.

But the selection of Zhukov as the country's economic tsar -- as one investment banker put it -- could be a sign that two key liberal reformers, acting Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin and acting Economic Development and Trade Minister German Gref, are on their way out, some market watchers said.

Fradkov, a career bureaucrat with vast experience in foreign trade issues, announced his choice of Zhukov during a visit to the State Duma, where he conferred with faction leaders ahead of their vote on his candidacy Friday.

The chamber's pro-Kremlin majority is widely expected to confirm Fradkov as prime minister, and only the Communists said after the consultations that they would vote against him. Communist leader Gennady Zyuganov described Fradkov as "a trader, not a producer."

The moon-faced, soft-spoken prime minister nominee did not mince words in announcing Zhukov's candidacy, saying only that he saw Zhukov "in the post of my deputy -- the first one." He did not elaborate.

Zhukov, a 47-year-old graduate of Moscow State University, spent the 1970s and 1980s climbing the hierarchy of the Soviet government's economic machine. He enrolled into an executive training program at the Harvard Business School in 1991 and worked at an exports firm upon graduation. Zhukov was elected to the Duma in 1993 and has remained there since, helping draw up 10 federal budgets and push through a range of key finance and economic bills.

Fradkov also told Duma deputies Tuesday that there might be only one other deputy prime minister in the next Cabinet. The last Cabinet had six deputy prime ministers.

Fradkov also pledged to cut back the number of ministries and other government agencies, dividing them into several "blocks" such as finance, industry, social issues and science and technology.

Source: Agencies

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