Vladimir Putin’s opening remarks:
Ladies and gentlemen,
Today’s session of the Government Commission on Budgetary Planning should mark an important step toward preparing draft budgets for 2013 and 2014-2015. We’ll need to do the groundwork by laying down tax and customs policy guidelines and economic development projections for the next three years.
Let me remind you that the Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of Economic Development have just held their board sessions. Those sessions dealt with some underlying issues and prospects for the future. The ministers made some very good points in their keynote speeches. Of course, we should take due account of all these things. But I’d like to point out that our primary task is to ensure high growth rates for the Russian economy. To be able to do that, we should stimulate budgetary and, more importantly, private investment, as well as to maintain the economy in good health and to further improve our macroeconomic performance. Reducing the budget deficit, reducing it to zero by 2015, is one of the targets we’ve set ourselves, and we should make sure these targets are met.
Second, to keep basic indicators, such as inflation rate, under control, we should follow up on our efforts to restrain price hikes. Earlier this year, we made a step in that direction and it proved effective, by and large. We should continue the year in this same vein. When drafting our budget, we should set pricing and other policies for natural monopolies, infrastructure monopolies and state-run companies.
As for social policies, we’ll need to provide 4-4.5% growth in real income growth and 5-5.5% growth in real wages next year.
Please keep all these key issues in mind.
Even in these initial stages of work on our basic fiscal document, we should establish good contact with the members of the State Duma and the Federation Council, so as to avoid difficulties and unpleasant surprises when the draft goes through parliament.
Well, that’s what I wanted to say in my introduction.