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.”
“On April 1 we indexed pensions by 6.3%, as we promised, and we must provide funds for this decision. Preliminary estimates indicate this will cost about 129 billion roubles. Another 13 billion roubles will be channelled to finance federal and regional increments to pensions. In addition, we are planning to allocate 92 billion roubles to provide housing for the veterans of the Great Patriotic War who registered after March 1, 2005, as well as for citizens previously dismissed from military service and sent to register on the municipal housing waiting list, which is famously slow.”
“We value your opinion of the effectiveness of the policies to support employment, including regional programmes to reduce the strain on the labour market. And I must say that last year we managed to defuse the situation in the labour market thanks to the implementation of these programmes and the insistent but reasonable policies of the trade unions. Once again, I would like to express my hope that we will continue to work together well into the future.”
“It’ll take time to overcome the negative effects of the global recession fully, rebuild the economy and reverse the budget deficit. This is why we cannot expect a sharp increase in budget revenues in coming years, which we could have spent on items other than servicing our debt. The budget will continue to run a deficit for the next few years, which is why we must adopt a highly responsible approach for each expenditure item, concentrating resources on high-priority budget items and trying to stay on schedule to reduce the budget deficit to 3% in 2012. The same strict discipline is also absolutely necessary for regional budgets in order to avoid discrepancies and ensure the stability of the entire budget system.”
“We are now experiencing the lowest inflation in 20 years: 3.8% for the first four months of the year. It's clear that this is very important and beneficial for encouraging investment and increasing lending, especially long-term lending. More importantly, low inflation allows us not only to maintain people's real incomes, but steadily increase them. Today we see an upward trend in key economic indices. Russia's GDP is expected to grow by 3.5%-4% in 2010, according to the forecast of the Ministry of Economic Development. There are even more optimistic scenarios, but we will proceed from that conservative estimate. Russian industry performed extremely well in April, posting double-digit growth, 10.4%, for the first time.”
“As you know, a large medical centre is being constructed in Moscow for children with oncologic diseases, primarily hematologic diseases. This centre will be the largest in Europe, without exaggeration. It'll accommodate between 250 and 300 patients, servicing another 300 patients at its ambulatory clinic. Also, there'll be a research lab and a hotel for the families of young patients. They will be able to come and stay there for the duration of the treatment. This option is very important for such patients. They need their family there. The government is doing this on its own. It'll cost the budget 11 billion roubles. Construction will be finished by next June. The centre will have the latest high-tech equipment. I hope it'll be able to receive its first patients at the end of next year.”
“We, both Russia and Kazakhstan, are at a rather advanced stage of preparations for WTO membership. There are still some matters to settle, but it will certainly be easier to do this bilaterally on the Customs Union's behalf than in the tripartite arrangement, because the more participants there are, the more problems there are, as every country defends its own economic interests and the number of contentious issues grows. This is evident. Certainly, it will be easier to join the WTO in the bilateral format. However, I want to point out that this is not a reason or pretext for not developing tripartite cooperation with Belarus included. We will do this.”
“Innovation products account for a mere 5% of Russia's economy, and less than 10% of Russian companies introduce technological innovations. There are many reasons for that. In the past we had practically no economic incentives to introduce innovations. There was no healthy competitive environment in place, which would prod companies to renewal. The national innovation infrastructure is meagre. The shortage of long-term financing available was also a discouraging factor. The number of innovation companies should certainly grow. Even a small result which would help strengthen Russia's foothold in markets for innovation products and services would justify the effort.”
“We now have enough effective mechanisms facilitating compliance with the law and coordinated work at all levels of state administration. We have prosecutors' offices and financial control mechanisms. A system for assessing the effectiveness of state power bodies and of local governments is in operation. As a last resort, the president of Russia has the right to voice his distrust in a regional leader. At the same time, I would like to stress that federal control is not and cannot be comprehensive. Regional administrations should assume responsibility before citizens. The people assess the performance of government bodies through elections of legislatures and through partisan preferences. I believe that this feedback mechanism is no less effective than any control from above.”
“In 2009, we allowed the regions to introduce tax breaks for small businesses and drastically increased the range of companies that can use the simplified taxation system. We have also allowed many self-employed businesspeople to forgo the use of cash registers. This year there are plans to expand the use of the tax patent system and to allow small businesses to purchase the state and municipal property they are leasing…. Small and medium businesses also receive additional direct budgetary support each year. Ten billion roubles have already been allocated for this purpose in 2010. We also plan to add another six billion roubles from the Anti-Crisis Fund. I am confident that these measures are already yielding tangible results.”
