VLADIMIR PUTIN
ARCHIVE OF THE OFFICIAL SITE
OF THE 2008-2012 PRIME MINISTER
OF THE RUSSIAN FEDERATION
VLADIMIR PUTIN
ARCHIVE OF THE OFFICIAL SITE
OF THE 2008-2012 PRIME MINISTER
OF THE RUSSIAN FEDERATION
VLADIMIR PUTIN
Transcript
of the beginning of the meeting:
Vladimir Putin: Mr Kiriyenko, how did everything go last year? How was the beginning of the year? And another question - what about further integration with our Ukrainian partners?
Sergei Kiriyenko: Mr Putin, here is my report. We at the Rosatom Corporation have compiled all our data for 2009. The year was of course not an easy one - this is a recession. And so I'm pleased to report that we have met all our objectives. In accordance with your instructions, the supervisory board established key performance indicators for us. One of these is income, which is very important. Also, we were charged with losing no foreign business during this recession year; therefore, our most important goal was to line up all our foreign orders for the next five years. We exceeded predictions for the state corporation by an average of 12%, and as far as key indicators, revenue increased 20% and the company increased its contract portfolio by 12%.
Vladimir Putin: Those are good indicators, particularly in a crisis year.
Sergei Kiriyenko: Efficiency is the most important thing. We have two indicators: the reduction of fixed costs - since variables depend on the amount of work and invariables are constant. We were able to reduce fixed costs by 17% in 2009. This has saved us more than 30 billion roubles. And we almost doubled our labour productivity indicators.
Also we calculated that in order to reach the same level as the leading corporations in this industry, we need to grow by no less than 12% per year. Last year, we grew 21.7%. Our goals for 2010 are even more ambitious.
Another important indicator that I forgot to mention is raw materials. Factoring in the programme that you approved for us, the opportunity to buy assets abroad...
Vladimir Putin: ...and the money that was allocated for this.
Sergei Kiriyenko: Yes, and the money that was allocated for this. We understand the level of responsibility since the money was allocated in what was a recession year for Russia. But we had something to spend it on.
I can report that we increased production of uranium by 25% for the year, and we increased the assets that are most important to us at a low production cost... We more than doubled the amount of such assets.
And we have set the goal of increasing uranium production by a minimum of 11% in 2010. This is in addition to the 25% increase in 2009. And we hope to increase labour productivity by 23%, which is more than in 2009.
We had a similar objective as far as exports - not to let exports decrease, and in fact increase them by at least 10%.
And now we're not only setting goals for revenue, because we don't need just any kind of revenue; we specifically need investment. We need funding to increase investments. Thank you for the government's assistance in this area. And we understand very well that our responsibility is to learn how to function independently in the future, reducing government aid while increasing our own sources of income.
As far as the practical measures, you charged us with following: Last month you attended the opening ceremony for the Rostov nuclear power plant. I can report that we reached 50% of nominal capacity on April 6. We are ahead of schedule.
In accordance with your initiative to establish international uranium enrichment centres - this was not easy, but the IAEA Board of Governors voted for it, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs contributed a lot to it, and on March 29, we signed an agreement with the director of the IAEA to establish reserves of low-enriched uranium in Angarsk.
And while many initiatives are being discussed, your initiative has already practically been realised.
Vladimir Putin: And how have we strengthened relations with Kazakhstan?
Sergei Kiriyenko: We have strengthened relations with Kazakhstan in accordance with the programme. We have approved a comprehensive programme. We've seen a sizable increase in assets thanks to our Kazakh partners. But we have not limited ourselves to increasing uranium extraction. We are also discussing the establishment of a joint venture that would operate in third-party countries, and so we are not only involved in exploration and extraction, but also joint representation in third-party countries. We are establishing a joint venture for uranium enrichment in Russia.
Our initial plans included building a plant from the ground up in the Russian Federation, but today the situation on the market is such that it does not make sense to build a new plant, and so we agreed to meet our Kazakh partners halfway and give them the opportunity to acquire shares in an existing enterprise. The appropriate documents have been signed.
Thirdly, we have a company that is building a new innovative reactor - a compact one based on shipbuilding technology. We are currently studying the feasibility of this technology.
Vladimir Putin: Integration is ongoing?
Sergei Kiriyenko: Integration is ongoing. We are preparing another agreement to be ready for summer 2010, i.e. we are moving step-by-step in accordance with the established programme.
Vladimir Putin: Have we prepared a workable plan with Mongolia?
Sergei Kiriyenko: We've signed a corresponding agreement with Mongolia. There was a delay, apparently associated with the change of government in Mongolia. We signed an agreement with the new government right after the elections, and in January we signed an economic agreement. The Mongolian government has ruled that the Dornod uranium field... is currently the property of the Mongolian government. The government adopted the appropriate resolutions and drafted documents, and we met with the Mongolian prime minister on March 7 when he was in Moscow. We reconciled the remaining discrepancies. We have already given the Mongolians the constitutional documents for the joint venture. And we met with the secretary of the Mongolian Security Council literally just a few days ago. He confirmed that the Mongolian government will make a final decision on this uranium field very soon... basically on the establishment of our joint venture.
This is the kind of field that can be developed very quickly, especially since our Argun Mining Association is located 300 kilometres from it, in the Chita region. In other words, we can make use of experts and necessary equipment located there. We can even train Mongolian experts at the technical school in the Chita region.
In addition, we were recently in India. On February 23 the first test rods were installed in the reactor. We have reached an important stage. In other words, it is now possible to say that construction is practically complete and we have moved into the testing phase. The first generating unit should be launched in 2010 and the second one by the end of 2011. This will enable us to implement the major programme that was signed during your visit.
There is also an important issue with regard to the United States. Remember how we fought for a long time to overcome the anti-dumping procedure? I can now report that we overcame it last year.
In the second half of 2009 and at the beginning of this year, we signed $4.2 billion worth of contracts, i.e. we're already signing contracts for 2014. We have signed full contracts for exports to the American market. This was crucial, since the HEU-LEU contract expires in 2013, and after that we would have disappeared from the American market. Now we can confidently say that we will be signing contracts through 2020, and we are also holding talks with potential American partners to establish a joint venture.
Here it is important that the U.S. government has made a final decision to bring the cooperation agreement before Congress for ratification. This clears the way for us to set up a joint venture.
Mr Prime Minister, regarding your question about Ukraine, immediately after we received your directive, we held talks through the Committee on Russian-Ukrainian Economic Cooperation with our Ukrainian partners, and we determined who would sit on all the working groups. As you proposed for our Ukrainian partners, we formed a separate working group for the nuclear fuel cycle. This entails both uranium and the enrichment of nuclear fuel with the option of setting up a production facility in Ukraine, which will benefit the mechanical engineering industry.
We agreed that the first task for the working groups would be to compile an exhaustive list in order to be sure that we didn't forget anything, and work out the logic of the process flow. The next step is the engineering work, which entails not only building new nuclear power stations, but also maintenance, modernisation, increased capacity, prolonged service lives for nuclear power stations, opportunities for investment and, in the future, the possibility of unifying generating capacities. We are keeping such a goal in mind because we're moving step by step, but basically we foresee the establishment of a unified company.
At the same time, our work is based on the principle that you set forth in your talks with the Ukrainian president - equitable cooperation. This is, of course, market-orientated and mutually beneficial. Nobody's interests should be ignored here. We are working on the principles of equal interests, equal opportunities and equal rights for partners.
Vladimir Putin: It is important that there are no delays, so that each decision can stem from another and the work can go on without any delays.
Sergei Kiriyenko: Mr Putin, the task is clear, and we will try to meet the deadline that you determined in the protocol.
Vladimir Putin: Good.
