Point of View

"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."

"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."

"Oil and gas producing companies have indicated several times that without guaranteed access to pipelines they will not be able to foster the rational use of transit gas. I think that such a guarantee will appear. But that means that in the near future, let us say by 2012, we must realise our plans for the amount of gas burnt in flares not to exceed 5%."

"When considering the future development of the consumer industry, we must give ourselves real, achievable aims, carefully weighing up our options, and not knowingly making promises that we cannot fulfil. I will now identify what I consider to be two key problems. The first is the struggle against illegal imports, a problem I mentioned earlier, and black market production. To this day counterfeit production occupies 40% of the market. Here I am also including smuggled goods. it's vital to implement several major investment projects in the sector, modernise consumer industry enterprises with the latest technology, which will allow a significant increase in production quality and will also gradually enable domestically produced goods to regain their prestige in the eyes of consumers in this country and abroad."

"Today the consumer industry comprises a healthy core of several dozen major enterprises and hundreds of small and medium sized companies, which have found their market niche, developing their production of goods for which there is a demand, including for children and young people."

"Despite the difficult situation with budget revenues, state support programmes will continue to be implemented in 2009. 200 million roubles have been set aside for interest rate subsidy on loans for the purchase of raw materials, and 90 million roubles for loans for technological upgrades."

"The main task for the next four years is to make the space industry useful to the Russian consumers, and speed up the build-up of a national group of satellites to enhance the reliability and technical level of communications, radio and television broadcasting, monitoring of the Earth's surface, and weather forecasting. It demands new-generation vehicles, with more extensive functions and longer service life."

"We decided to increase their workload. By 2015, Sukhoi will supply the Russian Federation's Armed Forces with over 60 cutting edge fighter planes. This will more than ensure there are commissions for the military part of the enterprise. The factory is also working on creating a 5th generation weapons system. Work on that is proceeding according to schedule."

"We decided that in order for shipbuilding in the Far East to be modern and competitive, and to ensure that no one who orders from them, even Russians, feel the requirement to place their orders abroad (and overall you can understand that they want the goods they buy to be at an acceptable market price and of good quality), comprehensive modernisation is required, or to be more precise, virtually new construction. We are also planning such construction at the Zvezda shipbuilding company in Vladivostok."

"You know how difficult and dangerous the miners' work is. These people have a right to expect additional pension guarantees, including from their employers. We issued instructions that these issues should be addressed again. Working together with the Federation Council, we accelerated the drafting of the law On Additional Social Security for Some Categories of Workers in Coal Mining. It stipulates additional payments to the pensions of the sector's workers depending on the length and conditions of their work. Such payments can be made to the miners who did the most difficult and dangerous jobs. Their retirement pensions with additional payments will amount to as much as 40% of their wage."

"And finally, I want to state that the nuclear industry has always been one of Russia's greatest assets. I am convinced that if we organize our efforts efficiently and set our priorities correctly, the nuclear industry will remain an important source for the country's development, whether it is in energy production, defence, economy, or science. I would like to wish all of you every success."

"As you know, we have already approved the project list for realisation of the Main Government Policy Areas Until 2012. The list consists of about 60 projects. The nuclear energy and nuclear weapons development areas have been included into one of the four "pilot" projects that will be implemented on a priority basis. The project will result in increased energy output at the existing facilities, ensure and strengthen Russia's leadership in nuclear fuel production, and allow us to introduce the most advanced radioactive waste utilization technology and accomplish a series of other environment protection measures."

"As you know, we have highly ambitious, and yet quite realistic, goals in this sphere. By 2030, nuclear power plants should account for 25% to 30% of electricity produced in the country. The current figure is 16%. The relevant figure exceeds 25% and even 30% in many European countries, so we will have to catch up with industrialised states. <...> There are no minor details in this sphere, a sphere that needs a corresponding financial backing. At the same time, we also need to develop a modern grid infrastructure and ensure the solution of many other problems, which have always been important in this sector whatever their scale, even if it is minuscule."

"This year, irrespective of all the difficulties we have experienced, we are not introducing cutbacks; instead, we are increasing the resources allocated to the development of the transport system. We consider this approach to be one of the most important anti-crisis measures, which will allow us not only to create more jobs, but will also lay down the fundamental infrastructure for the post-crisis development of our country. By comparison with 2008, how does the outlook for 2009 appear? The volume of investment has been significantly increased, by 100 billion roubles, which brings it to 550 billion roubles, including 312 billion roubles for the construction and major repair works on roads (up from 294 billion roubles last year). As a whole, the financing for the sector, combined with the anti-crisis measures, has increased by 30%, and if you take highway repair and construction, then this increase stands at 15%."

"We are going to allocate 2.9 billion roubles to one of the largest engine building companies, the Chernyshev Moscow Machine Building concern, which will allow it to retain its workforce of 7,000 people, and ensure the completion of major export orders."

"The electricity shortfall was one of the obstacles to industrial development and the realisation of a series of major projects. The cost of connection to the grid was prohibitively high, and that, in turn precluded the realisation of many long-term investment projects, as I have already said. This issue is particularly sensitive for small and medium sized businesses. In today's crisis conditions, demand for electricity has fallen slightly, and many regions of the Russian Federation are forming reserves. But this is clearly a temporary phenomenon. The restoration of sustainable economic growth is impossible without the development of the energy systems, without deep-rooted modernisation of the aging equipment, without the construction of new power stations and the development of the grid. In 2008 we added two GW of capacity, which is as much as was introduced during the previous two years, 2007 and 2006, together. It is very important that this pace is retained in the coming three years. This requires something in the order of 1.8 trillion roubles of investment."

"We also needed to support banks- and probably above all - because we needed to preserve the people's savings in our banks and prevent the paralysis of settlements between enterprises. We attained both goals."

"Moreover, the banks that received support managed to increase lending to the real sector by more than 15% over the five crisis months, and issued loans worth more than 1 trillion roubles."

"We had to protect the national currency affected by the flight of capital and declining export revenues, to ward off the attacks against the rouble. We managed to prevent uncontrollable devaluation. As we promised, the decline in the rouble exchange rate, which was inevitable in the situation, was smooth; that allowed the economy and people to adjust to the new realities."

"The current exchange rate of the national currency is clearly boosting the competitiveness of Russian producers in the external and, most importantly, domestic markets."

About this site / Make start page

The information posted on this website is licensed under a:

Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License