Aug 12. More funds are to be allocated from the budget to culture, health care, education and national defense next year, vice PM and finance minister Alexey Kudrin said. He went on to say that 2009 defense spending will be hiked 23.1% to RUB 1,266.8 bn, health care spending will spike 19.2% to RUB 357 bn and education spending will increase 24.9% to RUB 432.2 bn. According to Kudrin, RUB 1,085.3 bn, or 30.6% more, is expected to be allocated to security and law enforcement in 2009. The MinFin head emphasized a boost in spending for cultural, cinematographic and media activities. Financing of these sectors will be raised by 20.9%. Meanwhile, as Kudrin pointed out, 95% of the expenses falls to culture. Spending for this purpose will total nearly RUB 114 bn in 2009. The biggest addition, according to him, is to be made to the pension system. "Aggregate additions will total RUB 31 bn in 2009, RUB 180 bn in 2010 and RUB 360 bn in 2011" – Kudrin said. "The government will take steps to maintain social pension amounts at the subsistence level until 2011 and, consequently, base pensions, for this reason, will be much higher. Overall, our short-term goal is to make an additional decision on pension increases" – the finance minister said.