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
“Support from Russian citizens has always helped us, and I’m confident that the government’s future line-up will rely on the people. We must never forget about the needs of ordinary people. We must always remember how government-level decisions influence the lives of all ordinary Russian citizens.”
“We may have different approaches to problems, but our common goal is to improve the quality of life in Russia, to make it more decent, comfortable and prosperous, to create conditions for resolving demographic problems so that we can have more children and more happy children, and to help people in trouble, people with special needs.”
“Global transformational processes go on as we speak, so when forming our economic policies, we should be mindful of the whole array of internal and external factors. We need to develop an effective and reliable long-term planning and forecasting system which would help us identify growth trends and lay out the steps to be taken in each of the priority areas, which include enhancing living standards, poverty reduction, creating millions of new modern jobs, economic modernisation, increasing the share of innovative industries and high-tech exports, as well as developing industrial and transport infrastructure.”
“Russia’s economy must have higher growth rates than the global GDP in the next decade. In addition to growth volumes, we need a new quality of economic growth, which I have mentioned on many occasions.”
“Ahead lies a new stage in Russia’s development – the stage that will see the creation of state, economic and social order and a social structure that can ensure prosperity to our citizens for decades ahead.”
“Russia has the world’s largest territory. We must preserve and protect our territory from external threats and provide modern living and working conditions in all the country’s regions. We must pay a great deal of attention to the development of the Far East and Eastern Siberia. This is an essential geopolitical task. We need to ensure higher growth of the gross regional product in Siberia and the Far East as compared to the growth of the national GDP. This trend needs to continue for at least 10 to 15 years.”
“We need to go beyond simply disbursing the colossal amounts of funding that we have allocated towards achieving our purported goals. What we need to do is achieve new levels of quality in education, healthcare, defence and other crucial areas of the national economy. The money should be used for reform and to improve effectiveness.”
“We need to modernise all public and social services including hospitals, outpatient centres, preschools, schools and social welfare centres. They should comply with modern standards of comfort, design, energy efficiency, safety and accessibility, including for people with special needs.We need to look closely at both national and international experience and use the best practices as the basis for standard projects to be introduced across Russia.”
“We must create harmonious conditions for the development of our human resources as the main guarantee of national success and progress. And one more point – our economic and social policy should be fair and should be in line with advance the interests of our entire society.”
“We must start making specific plans of action now, without any delay, and not only for us but also for the future government.”
“We must reverse this situation in this decade. Each rouble spent on the social sphere must «produce justice». A just society and economy are the prerequisites of our sustainable development during these years.”
“I see our goal in years to come as sweeping away all that stands in the way of our national development, completing the establishment in Russia of a political system, a structure of social guarantees and safeguards for the public, and an economic model that together form a single, living, ever-changing organism of state that is, at the same time, resilient, stable and healthy.”
“The country was able to weather the global crisis precisely because of the fact that, in recent years we all, the people of Russia, went such a long way to solving the most pressing and top priority issues. And now we are even in a position to speak about strategies and prospects. <…> All the prerequisites for progress are in place, with new foundations and at a qualitatively new level. Incidentally, all this -- in the harsh foreign policy and foreign economic conditions. Nevertheless, the inexorable global transformation offers us a tremendous opportunity.”
“Russia must develop a system of social mobility that allows people to climb out of poverty, a system appropriate to a modern society. We must learn to compensate for the negative social consequences of a market economy and the inequality engendered by it. <…> Our society will become successful only when our citizens become convinced that it is a fair society.”
“Individual initiatives should be the real drivers of growth. We will fail if we rely exclusively on government decisions and on a limited circle of investors and state companies. We are certain to fail if Russians at large remain passive. Therefore, strong growth in Russia over the next decade implies greater freedom for each of us. Wealth sourced from others, without conscious decision-making and responsibility is out of the question in the 21st century.”
“Russia’s future economy should also meet society’s needs. It should ensure higher incomes and create broader opportunities for professional growth and social improvement. All the above should become the key growth criteria in the next few years, and not just figures such as GDP, international reserves, rating agencies’ assessments and Russia’s high rank among the world’s leading economies. It is of primary importance that people feel some positive change, mainly growing opportunities.”
“We all want Russia to be a strong and stable state with a powerful economy, a dynamically growing social sphere -- a country that is comfortable to live in and is securely protected. The main thing for all of us is to stay the course of steady and dedicated development, social and civil and ethnic harmony. In doing so, I am convinced that Russia will be able to face even the biggest challenges.”
“It is clear that the ambitious goals we are setting for ourselves can only be achieved under a new economic growth model propelled not by the commodity sectors, but by powerful high-tech industrial production businesses. <…> The key issues here are the costs and resources for building an innovative economy. According to our estimates, fixed investment needs to be increased to nearly 25% of the GDP by 2015, and then to 30%. Almost 43 trillion roubles are expected to be invested in Russia’s economy within the next three years.”
“We need to strengthen our political system, first of all. We need to expand the foundations of democracy in the country so that people begin to feel their direct connection with the authorities at the municipal, regional and federal levels, so that trust in the authorities grows and the political system becomes self-sufficient and resistant to external shocks and to all kinds of impostors that are trying to get in here from the outside and to influence our domestic political processes.”
“We need, of course, to diversify the economy, to modernise and renew it. We need innovation and modernisation to penetrate the brain of every citizen, for innovation to become part of our general policy. And, of course, we need to improve and develop our social sphere, so that no one feels neglected by the government.”
