Russia's cabinet on Thursday approved a draft bill allowing the government to buy a controlling share in largest lender Sberbank from the central bank, Finance Minister Anton Siluanov said. He said that the purchase would use "around 2.5 trillion rubles ($39.2 billion)" from the Russian sovereign wealth fund, to be paid in two instalments. The fund will use the dividends to pay for social initiatives, Siluanov said, as President Vladimir Putin has announced costly changes to benefits and payouts for families with children. The central bank sold a minority stake in Sberbank in 2012 but retained 50-percent plus one voting share. A sale would end the anomaly in which the central bank was the regulator for a bank it also controlled. Dividends will be paid into the wealth fund to be spent on budgetary needs. The finance ministry and central bank announced Tuesday they had come up with a draft bill to allow the purchase to go ahead. Russia's sovereign wealth fund this year is set to exceed the value of 7 percent of GDP, the legal threshold at which it can release funds for spending. Siluanov said the purchase could go ahead this year if the oil price is more than $52 per barrel. Putin announced ambitious new spending aimed at increasing the birth rate in his state of the nation speech in January, enhancing child benefits and payouts for giving birth. These measures will require extra spending of "more than 2 trillion rubles in the next three years," Siluanov said at a government meeting. Led since 2007 by German Gref, a liberal ally of Putin, Sberbank has modernised its branches and focused on digital projects such as e-commerce. am/ma/jh