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
"According to company reports, preparations are proceeding smoothly and on schedule. The heating season is in fact already on in many regions. Territorial energy systems and most housing and utilities companies have completed their preparations on time: they have finished the required repairs and formed the necessary backups. Power plant stocks of coal and fuel oil exceed the required levels by 37% and 29%, respectively."
"Prompt measures taken immediately after the accident helped prevent disruptions in power supplies to local consumers; however seven Siberian regions are running an energy deficit as a result, and this circumstance needs to be taken into consideration when making plans for the winter. The Government has already issued instructions aimed at restoring the energy balance in the affected regions. I would like to emphasise yet again that what we need to do is not just compensate for the current energy deficit, but ensure a sufficient reserve capacity in case of unexpected weather phenomena or other reasons for load peaks."
"In this regard, I would like to note that since 2005, the United Russia party has made significant progress on a social project entitled "Construction of PT Health-Building Centres." <...> The United Russia project involves 64 regions, and 144 facilities, including indoor skating arenas, gyms, and swimming pools, have already been built. I just spoke with him about using new technology for building swimming pools. They should be cheap to build, so that we can build many and meet the demand for them. Another 116 facilities are under construction, and at least another 60 will have been completed before the end of the year under the auspices of this project."
"We have launched a federal targeted programme The Development of Physical Fitness and Sports in the Russian Federation, and it is being carried out. It calls for the construction of about 4,500 sports facilities by 2015. As of today, 206 sports facilities have already been commissioned. Another 170 will open their doors this year, including 70 football pitches with artificial turf. The programme also calls for the construction of 64 sports facilities, two equestrian centres, and 75 football pitches in 2010."
"Growing birth rates will increase the demand for kindergartens and sports facilities. We will need even more sports programmes for kids, and more sports centres and clubs for physical fitness and sports overall. We must be ready for this, and we must start working now."
"I consider it expedient to draft a special federal targeted programme of reforming and modernising the housing and utilities sector in the period until 2020."
"We should ensure a priority reproduction of the fuel and energy base. In other words, annual increment of the prospected reserves of natural gas, oil, coal and uranium should exceed their annual production. At the same time, we plan to focus our attention on the development of fields in East Siberia and the Far East, as well as offshore fields."
"We must change the structure of the energy balance to increase the share of the so-called non-fuel power generation, non-fuel sources of energy such as nuclear power generation, hydropower generation, and other renewable resources. As for hydrocarbons, the key priority should be a deep conversion of the commodities, the production of high value-added output, and the development of modern gas chemistry and petrochemical sectors. The share of power generation should grow to 14% by 2030, and the depth of conversion to 90% from 72%."
"The Sayano-Shushenskaya hydropower plant is the key element, the backbone of Siberia's energy system. Several regions, the housing and utilities sector, and many enterprises, including five large metallurgical companies, depend on it. I want you to take proper measures to guarantee uninterrupted and stable electricity supply to the cities and industrial facilities."
"At the same time, hydropower plants - this plant and other hydropower plants - produce relatively cheap electricity, and its replacement with electricity produced at other types of power plants must not cause an increase in prices. We all know that we live in a market economy, and it is clear that replacement of hydroelectricity with electricity produced at thermal power plants is possible and will be justified in this situation, but three must be no price hikes."
"In general, we should check all strategic infrastructure facilities, scrutinising the process of their modernisation. This means also the introduction of new automated control systems. However, it is clear already now that we must improve compliance with technical, technological discipline. These issues merit special attention."
"We should draft a clear plan of restoring the plant. This work has been entrusted to the Ministry of Energy and RusHydro, which must use all available possibilities in the sector, such as personnel and research and technical capabilities. The plan is to be drafted and submitted to the government commission within six weeks, and to be approved by a government resolution."
"The energy infrastructure development has a highly positive growth effect on related industries, through the creation of new jobs. It has been estimated that every employee working in a nuclear power plant construction project creates jobs for 10 employees working in related industries. Here, we have also discussed that large projects of this kind have a highly positive effect on the construction industry. As a result, through NPP construction financing, we are actually making investments in several industries at the same time and supporting them in the time of crisis."
"In 2008, 421 billion roubles were allocated to transport from the federal budget, which is one and a half times as much as in the previous year. As a result of this increased investment, more than 2,200km of motorway were built, 296 towns were provided with year-round links to existing road networks, and several major transport facilities have been brought into use."
"We must resolve the task in hand in order to make sure that citizens, as well as the economy, are served by a modern transport system; avail of Russia's unique geographical location to ensure the maximal use of our transit potential; and offer new, alternative routes for the high-speed, secure movement of people and goods. All these strategic tasks are mentioned in the Transport Strategy in the period up to 2030."
"So, by comparison with 2008 the budget for transport infrastructure development will increase by more than 100 billion roubles. It will rise to 560 billion roubles including 312 billion to be spent on motorways, compared to the figure of 294 billion for 2008."
"We need to develop alternative modes of trade, so that people have a choice: not only the main supermarket chain, but also weekend markets, local shops and so on."
“The draft programme [on enhancing the seismic resistance of housing, essential projects and vital service systems in earthquake-prone areas] envisages a six billion rouble federal allocation in 2009 for urgent works to enhance project seismic resistance in Kamchatka, Sakhalin, and the Kuril Islands. In that, we need not only to renovate old buildings, but should pay ever greater attention to new housing and social infrastructural projects that are up to the latest standards of seismic resistance and comfort.”
“As for transportation infrastructure, we realise full well that it cannot develop rapidly enough in a country as vast as Russia, even though the target allocations we have earmarked are beyond comparison with what Russia and, before it, the Soviet Union, previously spent on this purpose.”
“In the present adverse situation, regional airlines acutely need new and effective craft. This should be lean-burn craft-it matters most for local routes. Passenger planes seating up to 50 are the most important. Russian industry does not yet manufacture such aircraft, so, to support airlines, we should exempt them from import duties as they purchase such planes and engines for them. We have coordinated that step with the Industry Ministry and the United Aircraft Building Corporation.”
”Many things contribute to tariff growth. One of them is a monopolised services market. We have set up a fund for reforming the housing and utilities totalling 240 billion roubles, a huge amount, and we are not using the money elsewhere, despite financial difficulties: the money has been allocated and will be used for its stated purpose. But we intend to give it only to the regions that make their own moves to improve the housing and utilities situation.”
“As for kindergartens, that is above all the responsibility of the regions and cities. At the federal level, we will do everything to encourage that work, we will help the regions to do it, but I would like to tell you that the shortage of places at kindergartens all over Russia has dropped by 30 percent in 2008 alone. That is a major step forward.”
"We have been reforming railway transport since 2001. It was then that the federal programme was approved and its main stages outlined. Today two of them have been completed. Specifically, we have set up the joint stock company Russian Railways, and independent operators have agreed to manage the freight market. Today, in the third stage of the reform, the main objective is to lay out a competitive market for both freight and passenger rail service."
"I consider it vital to protect domestic producers in the metallurgy, coal mining, engineering, aircraft building, shipbuilding, and general building industries. In the current situation, this is especially relevant. We must ensure that Russian companies maintain a heavy workload. Of course, they should work in the market environment without dictating high monopoly prices, because this would be inherently wrong. At the same time, however, protecting domestic producers is the Government's priority".
"It is crucial to create a national transport system, integrate various means of transport into a single logistic network, and introduce new technological compatibility standards."
"First of all, it is important to seek to realise the essential social task - ensure access to high-quality and reliable transport services for all people wherever they live. As of now, 10% of Russians live in villages that have no stable connection to the federal motorway network."
"In the wake of those meetings, high-priority decisions were made to ensure the transport system's development. A corresponding federal target programme has been adopted, with funds invested in the industry until 2015 amounting to 13.5 trillion roubles; almost 5 trillion roubles of this total will be allocated from the federal budget. In addition, other federal target programmes, as well as the programme for building Olympic facilities, suggest allocating quite large sums towards transport development."
"We have decided to set aside another 21 billion roubles for the Defence Ministry's housing programme. I am proceeding from the premise that this measure will help solve numerous social problems and will also support the national construction sector".
"We can and must use the extra resources of the Mortgage Crediting Agency, and involve the banking system as well. In this way we will help banks serve their customers (this implies the construction sector primarily). These steps, in my opinion, will also support future property owners, who invested in the construction of their housing and can encounter problems now when the construction is either completed or pending. All these measures will not only allow us to support the Russian building sector, they will also help address the acute social challenge of providing Russian citizens with proper housing".
"As far as the Housing and Utilities Fund is concerned, it has been set up to achieve several objectives, the key of them is resettling people from dilapidating houses. I consider it possible to accelerate the allocation of additional subsidies to Russia's regions so that local authorities could provide new housing for those who live in dilapidated houses. It is important for us to urgently allocate these funds, two-years limit, totaling 50 billion roubles".
"We have always proceeded from the premise that this project [the construction of the new Eastern Siberia-Pacific (ESPO) oil pipeline] will create the necessary additional foundation for comprehensive socio-economic development of Eastern Siberia and the Far East. These regions abound in natural resources but need special attention of the government, more money, and higher business activity. This is exactly the project which will resolve this task."
"Thanks to the concentration of resources and combined efforts of federal and local government bodies, we brought real change to these areas despite the modest investment in comparison with the financing of each of the sectors as a whole. Housing construction grew and primary healthcare services improved; high technologies are more broadly used in healthcare than before. Substantial investment was attracted to agriculture and to social services in rural areas. In education, more federal universities were established to set a new benchmark in education. Pilot projects were launched in the regions to reform the local education and healthcare systems.:
"Now we are facing new tasks. It is necessary to develop children's healthcare and pre-school education. The birth rate has gone up, and we do not have enough kindergartens. We should introduce new, higher standards for the production of food, and consider methods for protecting the younger generation from smoking, alcoholism, and drug addiction."
"The Government sees its prime duty in providing enough financing for education, health, infrastructure and innovative development. And, of course, for the strengthening of the country’s armed forces and security".
"We have already decided on the entire range of planes to be manufactured by the national aircraft industry. This is based on expert assessments and our real potential. In effect, we have found competitive market niches where we can succeed".
"Hard and painstaking work will be required in order to accomplish our long-term objective, namely, mass-producing competitive civil planes. Maximum concentration of resources and effective state support are also essential. This is why we started establishing the UABC that consolidates private and state assets manufacturing, designing and selling military, civil, transport, and unmanned aircraft two years ago. It took a lot of time and effort to set up the UABC. I hope that it will become a cost-effective performer".
"The Russian aircraft industry must have its own production facilities, maintenance and repair centres for the sake of sustainable development".
"The aircraft industry ranks among those hi-tech sectors where Russia’s industry and science can effectively realise their competitive potential and ensure the country’s worthy positions among leading global manufacturers of passenger and transport planes".
"Nuclear power plants (NPP) work most efficiently under full-load conditions. That's why the country's unified energy system must be ready to accept new facilities. It means that the priority development of the network infrastructure is essential".
"It is necessary to guarantee energy supply to households and to the economy, especially in the autumn and winter season. To this end we have to build an effective system of interaction among all the energy market participants".
"Today, Russia's transportation system is lagging behind the country's requirements. What's more, the inadequacy of the transportation infrastructure is acting as a brake on the economy and holding back innovation.<…> Ineffective logistics schemes are the result of these conditions. Russia's transit potential remains unrealized; consequently we loose considerable profits every year. Our country now forwards only one percent of the trade between Europe and Asia, while analysts tell us the figure could be five to ten times greater.<…> In order to fulfill these plans, we need to seek a fresh approach in the implementation of federal programs and to re-orient ourselves toward state-of-the-art design methods. In other words, every investment project, included in this program, should be economically sound, well-timed and well-planned. Plus, specific individuals should be held responsible for its fulfillment".
