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.”
"The main guarantee is a competitive and stable national economy, market institutions, effective government control mechanisms - wherever justified and necessary - and an up-to-date system of credit and finance, one which rests chiefly on internal resources and so is immune to global financial viruses."
"The Republic of Korea is our reliable partner in tackling a number of international problems. We hope that our fruitful cooperation will continue."
"New economic possibilities open up for us, including energy, advanced technologies, engineering industry and petrochemistry. We are ready to look at the possibility of cooperation in the civilian use of nuclear energy. I am very pleased to mention that the first Gazprom drill rig is scheduled to be launched in the Gulf of Venezuela in late October. It seems to me, the cooperation between Russian companies and the Venezuelan state energy company has a good outlook either for bilateral work or for entering the third countries' market."
"I want to stress that I think it is perfectly correct to preserve on the country's political scene different political forces with different political views, even if the authorities may not like some of them. But this is normal for a democratic society and evidence of a healthy society."
"You know, over the past few years the Government has been trying to keep the prices down, by administrative methods, and in most cases we were successful. Unfortunately there is some increase in prices, which is rather substantial. I will not give you figures. But largely it is connected with the growing world market prices. We cannot shut our market from the rest of the world."
"As for land ownership rights. How can we solve the problem of unit funds, and what can we do with them? Can we serve the interests of people, our citizens? Can we live up to their hopes and at the same time create conditions for effective development of agriculture, both small and medium-sized farms and large producers? This calls for collective discussions and decisions based on current practice, modern realities and development prospects."
"Improving professional training quality is one of the top priorities of our Education project. Essentially, we need to thoroughly revise its content, bringing it up to a level required for modern high-tech industries."
"Modern medical science has methodologies for treatment of cardio-vascular diseases. It is now important to ensure that all patients in all parts of the country receive timely and quality medical service. A project to set up regional and municipal cardio-vascular centres started this year is expected to help solve the problem."
"Thanks to the concentration of resources and combined efforts of federal and local government bodies, we brought real change to these areas despite the modest investment in comparison with the financing of each of the sectors as a whole. Housing construction grew and primary healthcare services improved; high technologies are more broadly used in healthcare than before. Substantial investment was attracted to agriculture and to social services in rural areas. In education, more federal universities were established to set a new benchmark in education. Pilot projects were launched in the regions to reform the local education and healthcare systems.:
"As for the pension coverage, as you know, we have already set ourselves the goal of making pensions match the subsistence wage by the end of 2009. On January 1 of the next year, the public-sector salary fund will be increased by 30% in one increase. This is a serious decision, and I expect an adequate response from it. However, we should think of how we can improve pension legislation, and increase the salaries of public-sector employees, in particular, in education and health care."
"We should demand results from scientific research and should slightly change the structure of funding. Look at how the developed economies finance science. Business is paying two thirds of the funding, and only one third comes from the state. The latter is mostly funding fundamental science. Why? This is so because research is more precise. It is better adjusted to the interests of the economy and the social sphere. This is also a two-fold task."
"Ours is a big country. <…> We have places where ungraded educational establishments, ungraded schools should be preserved despite the high costs, although we all understand<…> that an ungraded school costs the state several times more than an enlarged educational centre. Not only does it cost more, its educational services are worse. Regrettably, this is so, but let me repeat again that despite all this, some of them should be supported."
"However, I have studied the experience of some regions and can tell you that if we guarantee safe and comfortable transfer of children into larger educational centres, we will upgrade the quality of education. This is certainly so, and probably only in this case can we ensure equal access to high-end education, and enable children from the provinces to study in the country's best colleges and universities."
"In the last few years, much money was spent on the repair of the Bolshoi and Mariinsky theatres. Initially, this funding was supposed to be reduced, but we decided to preserve it. Starting in 2009, we will finance many cultural monuments, primarily, those on a special list, and not only in Moscow and St Petersburg but also in the rest of Russia."
"Now we are facing new tasks. It is necessary to develop children's healthcare and pre-school education. The birth rate has gone up, and we do not have enough kindergartens. We should introduce new, higher standards for the production of food, and consider methods for protecting the younger generation from smoking, alcoholism, and drug addiction."
"We have agreed to help the Agency for Housing Mortgage Lending by increasing its authorised capital by 60 billion roubles. We should do this anyway, whether there are problems in the global economy or not; we need to develop the mortgage system, and the Agency has long asked us to increase its authorised capital. We should do this along with appropriating the planned 250 billion roubles to make market operation more effective."
"The Russian Government and the Central Bank of Russia have adopted a block of measures to ensure Russia's economic stability. Considerable funds have been allocated to stabilise Russia's financial institutions, and a package of tax innovations has been formulated to continue to stimulate the economy."
"Mr Fillon and I discussed at length preparations for and the presentation of the Year of Russia in France and the Year of France in Russia. We expressed confidence that this meaningful project will enrich our dialogue and strengthen direct personal contacts between the citizens of the two countries".
"One of the power houses of our economic cooperation is energy. Our French colleagues have confirmed Total's interest in all phases of development of the Shtokman deposit. We see in this evidence of major French companies associating its long-term and strategic plans with Russia.”
