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Parliament committee recommends 2007 budget approval

MOSCOW, October 10 (RIA Novosti) - The committee on budget and taxation in the lower house of the Russian parliament recommended Tuesday that the draft 2007 federal budget be approved on a second reading.

The draft document envisions budget revenues at 6.96 trillion rubles ($258.83 billion), and expenditures at 5.46 trillion rubles ($203.05 billion), with a resulting budget surplus of 1.5 trillion rubles ($55.78 billion).

The 2007 draft budget allocates a total of over 70 billion rubles ($2.6 billion) to national defense.

Speaker Boris Gryzlov earlier said the budget proposal will be reviewed on a second reading during a State Duma meeting Wednesday.