Qatar's sovereign wealth fund the Qatar Investment Authority is allocating $2 billion to Russia via joint investments with state-backed private equity fund the Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF), Kirill Dmitriev, the chief executive of Russia's fund, said.

The RDIF invests alongside foreign partners and has previously attracted money from the Middle East and Asia including the Kuwait Investment Authority, Abu Dhabi's Mubadala and the Abu Dhabi Department of Finance.

"We are announcing three new partnerships, including one with the sovereign fund of Qatar which is allocating ... $2bn to invest jointly with the Russian Direct Investment Fund, and also two other new partnerships," Dmitriev said at a meeting between Russian President Vladimir Putin and foreign investors.

"We are pleased that we are actively working with investors from around the world, but we are also particularly focused on investors from Asia, the Middle East, as 90 per cent of all our funds involves these investors," he said.

The RDIF is a $10 billion fund which attracts outside capital to invest in Russian projects with the aim of lowering risks for foreign funds as they are partnering with the state.-Reuters