President Medvedev proposes fewer time zones in Russia

MOSCOW, Nov. 12 -- Russian President Dmitry Medvedev on Thursday proposed to reduce the number of time zones in the world's largest country to improve economic efficiency.

During his state-of-the-nation address to the Federal Assembly, Medvedev said it's necessary to evaluate the economic advantages of cutting the number of time zones.

"All the advantages of economizing and evident inconveniences in changing time are necessary to assess," he said, "I hope experts will give us objective answers to these questions."

Russia has 11 time zones ranging from its Baltic enclave of Kaliningrad to the eastern tip in Chukotka, a system that was adopted by the Soviet Union in 1924.

Medvedev also suggested a discussion on the use of daylight saving time and standard time.

Russia changes to daylight saving time from the last Sunday in March until the last Sunday in October.

The industrial policy committee at the Federation Council, the upper house of parliament, in July proposed to abolish daylight saving time because of adverse health effects reportedly caused by its use.