UPPER CHAMBER TO CONSIDER LAW ON AMENDMENTS IN 2001 BUDGET








MOSCOW, MARCH 5. /RIA NOVOSTI'S MARIA BALYNINA/ -- A law introducing amendments to the 2001 budget, to be passed for meeting commitments on servicing the foreign debt, has been put on the preliminary agenda of a sitting of the Federation Council, the upper parliamentary chamber, due on March 14. 


	This draft law had already got approval from the State Duma, parliament's lower chamber. Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov said that since March 1 the government has been in full measure repaying the external debt of Russia. 


	In a conversation with the Novosti news agency, Konstantin Titov, chairman of the Federation Council's budget committee, voiced certain perplexity over the government's starting to pay debts without waiting for approval from senators. Still, the upper chamber will most probably give its approval, he added.