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
“We should make it possible for a large number of Russian households to solve their housing problems. There should be no administrative, bureaucratic or corruption barriers on the way to achieving this basic goal.”
“I hope that you share my perspective that current economic, administrative and other conditions in Russia provide a historic chance to turn around the situation in the housing sector. We have everything we need to do so today, including land, financial and administrative resources. Certainly, we need to initiate steps that will help us move forward quickly and carry out high-quality construction projects.”
“Affordable, comfortable housing also means high quality utility services at clear and fair prices. The housing sphere should be turned into a modern efficient branch that is open for competition and attractive for private investment. The cost of utilities should be reasonable and predictable for residents and investors.”
“About 1.5 million people have received housing with the direct support of the state, including more than 200,000 veterans of the Great Patriotic War, in the past four years. In addition, maternity capital has helped more than one million families to improve their housing conditions.”
“The coming decade offers everything we need to make fundamental progress in solving the eternal housing problem. Most Russian families should have an opportunity to get a house with government support, with an affordable mortgage, through the development of private and cooperative construction and by launching a segment of affordable rental housing.”
“Housing was the most painful problem in the Armed Forces. <…> As you may be aware, only 8,000 – 10,000 new flats for servicemen were built or purchased in the 1990s and the early 2000s. About 20,000 servicemen were placed on municipal waitlists in the 1990s meaning that they didn’t have a place of their own at all. They are still waiting. Following our conversations with the military district commanders, we began a large-scale housing programme for servicemen of the Defence Ministry and other related departments.”
“Support of motherhood and childhood is a constant state policy priority. <…>The key issue here, of course, is affordable housing. Starting this year, as you know, families that have many children are entitled to receive free land plots that are under federal or municipal ownership, including for the purpose of building their own homes. We expect that this measure will truly help families to acquire their own housing.”
“Importantly, as many as 185,000 veterans have had their housing conditions improved in the last four years. We will continue working to complete this task, to provide housing to all those who need it, together with regional authorities. We will definitely continue resolving housing problems of those who serve in the Armed Forces and law enforcement agencies now and, of course, we will help those who retired without getting the housing they were entitled to and were put on municipal waiting lists where they felt like outcasts.”
“Each family in Russia must have the prospect of solving their housing problems. This is an important goal, one of our priorities. By 2016 we must practically double the construction of modern, affordable housing. But the main criterion for us is not simply square metres but a real opportunity for Russian families with various incomes to make a home for themselves in a new house or flat.”
“Affordable housing for people must be the main criterion of the effectiveness of our efforts. People must have an opportunity to resolve their housing problems. We must promote the construction of modern economy class housing and expand programmes for discounted mortgages for doctors, teachers, young families and young specialists. Of course, we will continue programmes designed to provide housing for northerners.”
“Over the past eight years, over 217,000 young specialists and young families have benefited from our housing programmes. Many young professionals based in rural areas have been able to improve their families’ living conditions, with more than 14 million square metres of residential space being provided for their housing needs. An additional 2.5 million square metres will become available in 2011-2013. Moreover, I believe that we should allow farmers to build their houses on farmlands.”
“What we need is not abstract square metres, but the availability of quality residences for people and solutions to the housing problems of real Russian families. This should be the main, basic indicator of the efficiency and productivity of our efforts in this area. This is why we will continue to press with our plans to provide housing for veterans, service members, military retirees and other categories of the population for whom the state has direct obligations – I am referring to those living in the Far North, to forced migrants and Chernobyl victims.”
“Vnesheconombank could credit commercial banks so they fund projects for affordable economy-class housing. As we agreed before, this investment should amount to at least 50 billion roubles, and the funding source should be Vnesheconombank’s return on operations in financial markets. I’d like to remind you that the bank earned profits from Russian companies’ shares which it bought during the recession and which have gone up. It would be sound to invest these revenues in housing programmes. These monies will be provided at only 3%, which will allow banks to reduce interest rates for end borrowers, ordinary people.”
“Resolving housing problems is certainly one of our main priorities. This policy is aimed at providing new apartments or new houses to as many Russian families as possible. People should have a range of options for improving their housing depending on each family’s income and current circumstances. These options must include state support, mortgage or personal savings.”
“Due to massive public support, we have managed to maintain the status quo. During 2009-2010, we invested very serious money - more than one trillion roubles - in housing programmes to support mortgages and the construction industry as a whole. As a result, we have not only made serious progress in sorting out people's housing problems, we have maintained the potential for reconstruction and the development of construction and related industries. Housing construction is up in 37 regions of the Russian Federation. From January to June 2010, 21.6 million square metres of housing was commissioned. This is almost the same as in the first, pre-crisis months of 2008, and about 60 million square metres of housing is expected to be built in 2010.”
“I'd like to speak about the housing issue. This has been the main issue in this country for many, many years. As you know, we promised to resolve this problem for those veterans of the Great Patriotic War who registered before March 1, 2005. We have reached this goal. The Krasnodar Territory was the last region to report that it had carried out this objective. We received their report on May 1 of this year. I assume that there are still some problems, but let me repeat that all regions have officially reported on this issue. Of course, we will verify this, but it seems as if the problem has been resolved - 28,500 veterans have received flats.”
“We will also launch a fundamentally new federal targeted programme for the comprehensive modernisation of housing and public utilities, which will complement the efforts that the Housing Reform Promotion Fund started several years ago. Naturally, this programme will not just be about major housing repairs. Significant renovation of utilities networks is also necessary. Moreover, this renovation should not only be undertaken in emergencies and should involve modern technology, materials, energy-efficient equipment, private investment and concessions.”
“Such loans are exclusively designed for buying flats in new buildings. This is also a well-thought-out decision, because new flats are cheaper, and sometimes much cheaper, than secondary real estate market because in the past construction materials and everything else were more expensive than today. I hope this will allow us to support housing construction and encourage new construction projects.”
“We have together agreed that it is premature to reduce measures of support for the real economy this year. Support for housing construction is one of these measures. I believe that we should use government resources to encourage demand for inexpensive, affordable housing. Therefore, we will impose a ceiling on mortgage loans - three million roubles in the regions and eight million roubles in Moscow and St Petersburg, our metropolises.”
“Vnesheconombank (VEB) and the National Welfare Fund will grant commercial banks a total of 250 billion roubles to enable them to issue affordable loans. This is the long-term credit that we will use to resolve the housing problem.”
“At the end of last year, the government issued an instruction to the relevant bodies to find additional resources for supporting mortgage loans in order to make them accessible to the public. I have already said more than once that interest rates on mortgage loans should not exceed 11%, and the down payment should not be more than 20% of the cost of a flat. Calculations show that such terms will allow many more people to take advantage of mortgage loans, because they cannot afford to pay the 14%-15% the banks require today. Even 11% is high, and should be lowered in the future.”
“We have two key goals for housing. First of all, we must consistently fulfil the government's obligations to supply housing to particular demographics, such as war veterans, people who took part in the Chernobyl cleanup, army servicemen, etc. I'm also talking about relocating people out of dilapidated housing and other similar programmes.”
“The state corporation is called the Housing and Utilities Reform Fund, and I would like you to remember this. The regions should not only co-finance your projects and the necessary funds for resettlement and repair of housing, but also submit programmes on the reform of the housing and utilities sector. They must de-monopolise this sector, create the partnerships of housing owners and help them on their feet, and also encourage the creation of companies that will not bring housing into disrepair on such a large scale, but help to make the next step, that is, maintain it in good order and to make repairs when necessary.”
“At the end of the day, increasing construction is the only sure way to meet people's housing demands. It is important to provide construction companies with the widest range of sites connected to all necessary infrastructure, including roads. We are relying on the Housing Construction Fund to address this issue.”
“There is another important issue we must discuss today. We have said many times this year that we will allocate another 250 billion roubles to revitalise the mortgage market. These additional funds will be allotted to reduce the mortgage interest rate. I would like to stress that this is our objective. Our objective is not just to allot funds, but actually reduce mortgage interest rates.”
“We set a goal for ourselves of commissioning 52 million square metres of housing. In fact we did even better, commissioning almost 60 million square metres of housing. To be exact, 59.8 million square metres. The main thing is to keep up and gradually increase construction. Most importantly, construction projects under way must be finished and new projects launched.”
“The work to provide housing to demographics to which the government has special commitments is being carried out entirely on schedule. This includes service members employed at the Ministry of Defence. As we promised, we will settle the issue of providing service members with permanent housing in the near future. The work on providing housing to veterans of the Great Patriotic War has gathered pace as well. We have made serious progress in the programme to relocate people out of housing that is beyond repair. A total of 130,000 families, 130,000 people, will receive new housing; legal formalities are underway. I would like to emphasise that we must meet all our commitments to provide people with housing.”
"In 2010, 44.4 billion roubles have been allocated for the construction and purchase of more than 45,000 flats for service members. I would like you to know that until very recently this was thought to be an impossible task. People are weary, but they are resigned to waiting for years for their housing problem to be solved. I am referring to service members. Some thought that it was an impossible task. We should complete it in 2010."
"We must meet all the housing construction targets and continue to move people out of old housing that is no longer safe. I would like to repeat that it is our challenge and our obligation to the people who still live in slums to clear these slums and enable people to live in normal, modern conditions. All World War II veterans and Defence Ministry servicemen should be provided with housing. While making use of market mechanisms, we should lower the interest on mortgage loans. You will remember that we are committed to providing 250 billion roubles for these purposes through Vnershekonombank. The mortgage rate should be cut to 10-11% at the first stage. In the longer term - and I have just been discussing this with my colleagues - we should seek to bring it down to 7% and less. This will address people's housing problems and stimulate construction and related industries."
"A new federal target programme has been proposed for modernizing housing and municipal services. Currently, our main policy tools in this sector are the Fund's programmes for rebuilding housing and municipal services, which have proved to be most effective and in demand. As I have already said publicly, the fund was established by selling assets previously owned by the Yukos Company. We use resources from the Fund to resettle residents living in hazardous housing and repair dilapidated housing. However, the fund was only established to operate on a temporary basis - until 2012. In addition, the scale of problems in this area is so great that they require additional resources. Along with major renovations of blocks of flats, serious efforts are also needed to refurbish local municipal utilities networks, introduce resource-saving technologies and improve the quality of municipal services. These all are priorities of the aforementioned target program."
"The Housing Construction Fund must work more effectively. This year alone it has prepared 1,500 hectares of federal land for development on which 6 million square metres of housing will be built."
"We must fulfil our commitments to individual categories of citizens to make housing more accessible and promote buying with mortgages, the most universal instrument used throughout the world. Every effort will be made to maintain the current pace of housing construction. Modern housing standards should be introduced. The outdated prefabricated "boxes" should be replaced with comfortable, energy-efficient and environment-friendly homes, including low-rise houses. Unfortunately, we have not been paying enough attention to that topic. What we need is essentially a programme of large-scale construction of inexpensive housing. Its share in the total housing stock is now about 5%. It should be brought to 25%, let me stress, not less than 25%."
"Of course, 14.5% - an average interest rate on mortgage loans - is too high for many people. Incomes in Russia are not high enough to meet these loan requirements. For mortgage to become affordable for a broad range of people, we should lower the interest rate to 10%-11%."
"You know that pension funds are used in all countries as an instrument and a source of long-term loans, which is crucial for mortgage lending. Given the volume of saving, including the funds managed by Vnesheconombank, we could think about using these instruments in Russia, although very carefully and with maximum guarantees. VEB is currently managing 690 billion roubles ($24 billion) of pension accruals. A month ago, the Government approved a new strategy for investing pension accruals managed by VEB. Up to 20% of these funds, or some 100 billion roubles ($3.5 billion), can be invested in mortgage bonds of Russian banks."
"We must encourage the construction of affordable, comfortable, energy efficient, eco friendly housing. We could make low-rise construction one of our priorities. It is essential to develop an industry of building materials and introduce relevant technology. We must adopt standards and determine the price range of economy-class housing as soon as possible. Smart general plans for property development will help reduce the costs of housing construction."
"We must pull our people out of the slums. This is one of our major social and political tasks. This is simply our duty to our citizens who still live in such miserable conditions."
"Housing is one of the most important economic and social issues. It has remained more urgent in Russia than in any other civilized country for decades.The provision of housing for war veterans and army servicemen is a priority, and as we have promised, we will do everything in 2010 to fulfill these government commitments."
"It is particularly important that we both support the construction industry now and make substantial progress on housing problems. First of all, we need to be more proactive in allocating land for residential construction, in city-planning, and in resolving issues with utility networks. If we fail to do this, we are at risk of losing the momentum in residential construction that we have worked so hard to gain recently."
"We have arranged smooth interaction with natural monopolies, and are negotiating with banks for crediting communal infrastructural construction. As the result, the first land plots can and must be fully equipped for construction within a few months, with an emphasis on building low-rise homes."
"We need to launch new fields of the housing project this year, as we have planned, and start reclaiming vacant and misused federally owned land plots. An ad hoc fund for the promotion of housing construction has been established with this purpose. Active cooperation with the regions has helped the fund to obtain information about approximately a thousand such land plots, with the total area of a million hectares."
"Investment in various housing programmes will amount to 440 billion roubles in 2009, the money coming from federal, regional and local sources, the Housing Mortgage Crediting Agency, and the Housing and Utilities Reform Fund. If we take capital repair allocations into account, the funding will make record-setting 500 billion roubles."
"Active housing construction belongs to top national priorities. The financial crisis should not make the population bury their plans and aspirations in this sensitive sphere. That is what we proceed from. Those who have intended to buy a flat or build a private house should retain the opportunity."
"We will make sure that the regions follow the demands of those laws that have been introduced: a faster transformation of the housing sector, co-financing from the regional and local budgets, and focussed and effective use of the resources allocated. We will focus on resource and energy saving, which implies the installation of water, gas and heat meters in houses and flats, because the people must pay only for what they really use, not for what the bills say. Only by doing this will we develop civilised relations between producers and consumers in the housing and utilities sector, raise the quality of service and ensure an affordable level of the tariffs in the sector."
"In medical terms, this problem can be described as a chronic disease of the economy and social sphere. I am referring to the housing and utilities sector. It would seem that these problems are better left as they are, because the people's complaints are legitimate, and the sector has improved, but not much, at first sight. On the other hand, unless we address these problems and discuss them publicly, we will never solve them. We should act in accordance with the Russian proverb, "What the eyes fear, the hands do." We must keep working on these problems, and the more complicated a problem, the more publicly we should discuss ways to solve it."
"Much has been done in the past few years to transfer the sector's enterprises to new operating conditions and introduce modern mechanisms of managing the housing stock and providing social assistance to the people. <...> As many as 79 regions are taking part in the programmes of the Fund for the Housing and Utilities Reform, with 7 million people to improve their housing conditions within these programmes. As of now, 120,000 people have received or will soon receive new flats. By doing this, we will quickly advance toward implementing the goal stipulated in the guidelines for the Government's operation until 2012, when we are to liquidate dilapidated housing."
"Of course these resources, the total value of which is half a trillion roubles, does not only go to supporting construction, but also towards facilitating the resolution of people's housing problems."
"The President promised that all veterans of the Great Patriotic War would have [befitting] housing by May 1, 2010. I can assure you that we will definitely fulfil this task. By May 1, 2010, all veterans of the Great Patriotic War will have [befitting] housing. We will fulfil this task."
"In 2009 the unprecedented sum of 440 billion roubles will be spent through the federal and regional budgets, the housing agency funds, and the mortgage credit agency in order to stimulate construction and other housing programmes. In 2008 this figure stood at 249."
"As for housing, we have decided to exclude some payments from the property contribution. People or families investing 2 million roubles in housing will not pay taxes for this sum, which should support the housing demand"
“As regards the housing policy, we must finalise a system of regulatory documents promoting competition in the construction industry. We have approved modern technical regulations making it possible to build top-quality and much cheaper housing than it is today. We must also involve additional land resources now being misused by numerous federal agencies in the economic process. The relevant Housing Construction Promotion Fund has been established. We are expecting tangible results from its work.”
