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
Vladimir Putin's opening address:
Good evening.
We have several important items on the agenda. I would like to start with the VEB annual report for 2008.
It was a hard time for the Russian financial system and entire economy. It had to survive the onset of the crisis, starting in August, and adapt to new harsh working conditions.
I want to say that the VEB personnel displayed necessary professionalism, and the bank demonstrated stability and effectiveness in doing its duty as a state development agency and one of the Government's principal anti-crisis tools.
Our sources show that the VEB loan portfolio exceeded 350 billion roubles last year despite the crisis.
The bank started funding the 21st new project. The projects are related to infrastructure development, high technologies, and new industrial plants - in particular, the modernisation of Siberian and Far Eastern railways; the establishment of technology parks in Tatarstan and the Kaluga Region; the reconstruction of several power plants, and work in the entire energy industry. The bank also joined the investors in Olympic construction in Sochi.
The bank will certainly carry on the analysis of applications for new investment projects this year.
We plan to discuss one of them here. It is the manufacture of new generation engines by the Avtodiesel plant.
The principled decision for VEB participation in the project was made during a visit to the Yaroslavl Region in December 2008. The project envisages highly reliable lorry engines complying with the latest environmental standards.
Tests of their developmental prototypes are at a final stage. VEB financing will make it possible to launch the engines into mass production and create more than 1,200 new jobs.
I want also to emphasise an interesting and promising VEB initiative to attract foreign investment funds to the implementation of Russian infrastructural projects.
Last but not least, we will discuss VEB work to implement Government anti-crisis measures. In particular, we will analyse the fulfilment of obligations by companies that received VEB loans at the end of 2008 to refinance their foreign loans.
VEB loans made it possible to prevent selling cheaply strategic Russian industrial assets which had been mortgaged abroad. We earmarked $50 billion for the purpose initially but we made do with $10.5 billion, and even that sum has been partly paid.
I repeat once again - debt payment aid is not the state's gift to corporate mammoths but loans to be paid and duly served, which means interest payments.
Let us turn to our agenda.
