MOSCOW: Russian President Dmitry Medvedev confirmed acting Finance Minister Anton Siluanov in the post on Friday, signalling that the career bureaucrat will remain on his team when Medvedev becomes prime minister next year.
The decision comes less than three months after long-serving Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin, a fiscal hawk respected by investors, quit over government plans to hike military spending that he considered a threat to public finances.
Under a planned swap of roles in Russia's ruling 'tandem', Medvedev is expected to become prime minister once Vladimir Putin, who currently holds the role, secures a likely return to the Kremlin at a presidential election in March.
"If Medvedev is appointing Siluanov now as minister of finance then I guess the expectation is that he'll appoint him when he forms a new government," said Jacob Nell, an economist at Morgan Stanley.
Nell added that the roles of finance minister and deputy premier previously held by Kudrin could be split, with Medvedev's economic adviser, Arkady Dvorkovich, possibly landing the more senior position.
"I expect Siluanov will be a kind of technocratic minister of finance and there'll be a more political deputy prime minister in charge of economics and finance which is likely to be Dvorkovich," he said.
The decision closes the door to a possible return to the finance ministry by Kudrin, who has criticised the conduct of this month's parliamentary election but who is considered by Putin to have a potential future role in government.
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