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.”
"This calls for substantial changes in the laws. The infrastructure of the financial market should be strengthened and superfluous administrative barriers have to be removed, thus cutting the cost of attracting capital to Russian money markets."
"In recent years, more and more enterprises in the real sector have regarded the stock market as a convenient and reliable instrument for raising funds for investment projects. Just one example: in 2007, the issue of securities raised over 850 million roubles, or 13 percent of the total amount of investments. The results this year will be more modest. This is understandable in the light of the global financial crisis. However, the main conclusion remains that the financial sector has become part and parcel of the Russian economy. On the whole, it is coping with its main job of converting national savings into investments and production development."
"The recent events - the substantial drop in the shares of domestic enterprises -- have shown how uncomfortable it is when most of the decisions as to which securities to buy or sell in Russian money markets are made outside the Russian Federation, based on criteria that have little to do with the real state of our economy and Russian enterprises. As a result, the current prices of the shares of our enterprises are far lower than the real value of their business."
"It is necessary to develop the microfinancing. We should take advantage of this groundwork. We agreed to try our best to make municipal orders and local tenders, even those held at the federal level, accessible to SMEs."
"Russia-German gas cooperation, it is developing very well indeed. Today we have reached the level about which we merely talked a few years ago. It was decided at the complicated talks, that our German partners would cooperate with us in producing gas on Russian territory. We are partners in the project you have mentioned, Nordstream, on transporting gas to Europe. Gazprom has become a co-owner of the German transportation network. It goes without saying that this makes our partnership well-balanced all the way."
"E.ON AG owns a big package of shares in Gazprom, and has been represented in its board of directors in the last few years. We have been jointly producing gas and transporting it to other European countries. Needless to say, this strengthens stability and reliability, and I would even say, mutual control of the situation in our economies, and in part, in this sector."
"Today we will consider the report on budget execution within the first nine months of 2008. I would like to underscore that financing of priority budget items was boosted, which is good news. For example, education expenses have totaled 198.6 billion roubles, compared with 174 billion within the same period of the last year. We have allotted 155 billion roubles to the development of healthcare and sports, which is almost 50 billion more than in 2007. Financial aid to Russia's Regions was boosted as well. Interbudgetary transfers have grown 177 billion roubles, amounting to 740 billion roubles."
"To make strategic plans, investors and local governments should be aware of the Investment Fund's possibilities as well as their own abilities. This means that we need a long-term forecast for replenishing the Fund with money."
"Obviously, one of the major anti-recessionary tools is federal budget funds. We must effectively allocate them to back solvent demand in the economy, and to ensure unqualified fulfillment of social liabilities, including timely payment of state-paid employees' wages, pensions, and benefits."
"The Programme envisions improvement of the legal framework of anti-trust policies. We'll have to clearly and precisely define areas where the Law On Competition should be applied. Not all actions currently formally qualified as breach of antitrust law are really violations. We'll also need to delineate between tough but fair market play and forbidden tricks."
"The sectors where unfair competition has reached a systemic level, directly hurting people's interests and hindering business development, require special attention. I am referring to jet fuel pricing policies, for example, exorbitant fees for connection to power grids, the markets for coking coal and petrochemicals, public utilities and other sectors. We need tailor-made "pinpoint" solutions here. In particular, we need to approve regulations for non-discriminatory access to services of natural monopolies, as well as customs and tariffs regulation measures."
"The Programme also emphasises competition policies aimed at encouraging small businesses. It is an important current economic and social policy issue, because this sector plays a significant role in creating jobs."
"We'll have to work faster on removing administrative barriers hampering the development of entrepreneurship, implementing our earlier decision as well as additional measures. In particular, we needs to work more intensively on building an information support system for businesses, that is, expand and diversify market reports and price indicators published by the authorities. The move will take away, or at least lessen illegal advantages of businesses benefitting from informal contacts with officials."
"Another pressing issue is dealing with the mala fide practice of illegally granting special privileges to companies which are "close" to the federal or local governments, while putting up artificial barriers for their rivals. This often happens when placing federal or municipal orders."
"Our plans to promote competition can be divided into two major blocks. The first block includes protecting competition with a strong anti-trust policy.Proposals include a crackdown on cartels and greater punishment for government and corporate officials for violating competition rules, even up to criminal prosecution. The second block has to do with shaping competitive markets. The Government proposes a systematic action plan for that. Our first priority will be to create a favourable environment for new and effective economic operators."
“The Russian-Kazakh border demands the closest attention of all. <…>As for the Kazakh border and our partnership with Kazakhstan, it certainly demands much time, effort and money. Let us not forget about drug trafficking on our south borders. Our federal agencies should closer cooperate with their Kazakh counterparts. Much has been done already for the necessary political and legal basis. With consideration for the drug threat, I think the State Anti-Drug Committee should be extremely active in this work.”
“We must think about stability and security of the new institutions even now, and concentrate on increasing the effectiveness of transnational travel checks of individuals, cargos and transport. There is also an information system to be arranged for smooth cooperation of border guards and customs services. What we need is a unified information system.”
“The formation of the Russian-Belarusian-Kazakh Customs Union has gained pace, largely on our partners' initiative, which I find correct and well-timed. The Customs Union will begin its work quite soon.”
“The implementation of the programme for the support of the agro-industrial sector, which we developed several years ago, has allowed livestock breeding to make substantial progress. Big producers, and major complexes have appeared, the like of which we did not have in the Soviet Union. Some of them match their world's best counterparts in characteristics and scale, and in some cases, they are the best in Europe and the rest of the world. As for dairy processing, the enterprise where we are right now is certainly an example of such a leader.”
