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 work of bringing gas to the Far East is already under way. Yet it can be rightfully said that today we are giving a start to a major and large-scale effort to extend the country's Unified Gas Supply system eastwards. This project (the Sakhalin-Khabarovsk-Vladivostok trunk gas pipeline) will open a new page in the development of Eastern Siberia and the Far East, breathe energy into the growth of these regions and make them more attractive and competitive. And, first and foremost, to improve the quality of life for Far Easterners and Siberians.”
“The construction of the Sakhalin-Khabarovsk-Vladivostok gas pipeline is only part of the state's sweeping Eastern Gas Programme. I am certain that even specialists who are present here today do not know all about the scale of this work. Within this programme, we are to undertake a vast amount of geological exploration in the Krasnoyarsk Territory, the Irkutsk Region, in Sakhalin, Yakutia and Kamchatka, to discover dozens of deposits, provide them with field facilities practically from scratch and put them into operation, and bind them together with a network of roads and gas pipelines.”
“Distribution markups will be regulated by the constituent entities, as before, but based on the methods approved by the Federal Tariff Service. This will help exclude useless intermediaries from the supply chain. If a company violates pricing regulations, it will bear responsibility, up to losing its license.”
“The prices of medicines rose by 18.3%, much more than the prices for other goods and services. Moreover, in the regions, the price of one and the same drug can vary by as much as two to three times. All this indicates a lack of order here. <…> I think we should tighten state regulation in this sector. Producers will have to prove the need to revise prices of vital medicines, and federal bodies of authority should develop an effective procedure to oversee and verify their calculations, and be given the authority to refuse the registration of inflated prices.”
“I would like to stress once again that within the context of the financial crisis and the budget deficit, we are, essentially, taking an unprecedented step in the social sector: we are raising pensions. No one else is doing this, no one. It is also vital that we guarantee wages in the public sector, that we pay benefits and provide pharmaceuticals for pensioners and disabled. High-tech medical support will not be forgotten, nor will support for modern educational centres, or housing programmes. Let me add that the allocations for social policies in 2010 will increase by more than 10%.”
“Regarding the deficit, this as I said, will amount to 3.2 trillion roubles in 2010 or 7.5% of our GDP. There is no doubt that we can find the funds to cover it. However, I should tell you directly that this is the maximum deficit that we can allow ourselves without harming our macroeconomic stability. <……> I repeat: we must strictly adhere to the decrease of the budget deficit planned for the period 2011-2012. Correspondingly, we will try to move to a deficit of 4.3% in 2011, and 3% in 2012.”
“Over 70% of the 2010 budget expenditure has been clearly earmarked for social programmes. These resources will go towards supporting people's income, and providing them with vital services.”
“We do have a choice about how we deal with this deficit. What are the alternatives? Either we have an abrupt, dramatic reduction in expenditure, or we accept the deficit, but look for additional sources of income, and find reasonable ways of making up for the shortfall. I think there is a stronger case for the latter, and that this is a more viable direction for the country today. It is also in line with the socio-economic policy of social justice, which is a policy we have pursued in recent years. It is, of course, imperative that we fulfil the promises we made to our people, the plans for economic development.”
“We must reorganise budgetary expenditure for 2010, and many projects will have to be cancelled or delayed until a later date. But all the key priorities linked to investments in human resources and in the innovation sectors of the economy must be retained.”
“Economic conditions are very uncertain. But we need to take this uncertainty into consideration, and at the same time understand that we will have to pursue a tight and highly responsible budgetary policy in the next few years. In particular, we must gradually reduce the budget deficit (I will speak about that later), limit the growth of budgetary expenditure, and increase the payoff from each invested rouble. These are the bases of macroeconomic stability and successful post-crisis rehabilitation of the economy.”
“In the draft budget for 2010, we must find an optimal balance for resolving simultaneously a whole number of objectives. First, we must secure the improvement of living standards for the senior generation and modernise our pension system. As you know, a considerable sum of more than 600 billion roubles has been appropriated for these purposes. <…..> Second, we must actively continue using the instruments of enhancing demand for domestic products, which have proved their worth, such as leasing, subsidies for interest rates on loans, and support of exports. Third, we should not forget about the goals of long-term development, programmes for modernising the infrastructure, and support for the high-tech industries. As you know, only yesterday we had a general discussion on supercomputer technology at the Security Council.”
“In 2010, we intend to improve, albeit modestly, the main macroeconomic indicators, achieve a positive growth of the GDP, industrial production, and agriculture, as well as stabilise real incomes of the population. In a word, we are planning to switch to post-crisis development.”
“Gaz de France is our long-term, reliable and stable partner, one of the biggest European energy companies. We know about the level of your competence in gas liquefaction, and are interested in cooperating with you in this and in other directions - transportation, electric power, and renewable energy sources. On the whole, energy industry is a major component of our cooperation with the French Republic. In this context, we are pinning great hopes on cooperation with such European grandees as GDF.”
"We took the fundamental decision to develop high-level timber processing in Russia. We announced these plans long ago, we set them out, and our partners recognise this. We will accommodate our traditional partners. However, I would like to stress again that the strategic plans to develop timber processing within the Russian Federation remain unchanged. And that means that we must agree in due course about how we will go forward and how we will build our relations in this sensitive area."
"Should the Finnish Government make a decision regarding the future development of nuclear energy, Russian companies would be interested in participating in the relevant tenders. And I do not doubt that the bids put forward by them will be competitive in their financial and technical criteria, and in terms of safety requirements."
"In this regard, I would like to mention, first and foremost, the organisation of high-speed passenger train links between St Petersburg and Helsinki, which aims to cut the journey time to 3.5 hours. On the Russian side, this project is being implemented under a public-private partnership. Its overall cost is around $2.5 billion, over a third of which is allocated from budget resources. The positive experience accrued here could be successfully applied to other areas of cooperation."
"The crisis did not shake Russia off course for its future integration into the global economy. I am certain that Russia's imminent accession to the WTO and the OECD, on mutually acceptable, non-discriminatory conditions, will promote increased stability in global trade and economic systems."
"The most important one being the clearly expressed mutual desire for the expansion of our partnership. We are united on the fact that it is vital to create an environment that is as favourable as possible to joint business initiatives, industrial cooperation, and joint investment streams. Moreover, we have something to start from. Last year we attained a record trade turnover of more than $22 billion. Russia became Finland's most important partner, ranking first in terms of trade."
"High technologies certainly dominate our bilateral relations. This directly concerns energy industry. Russian companies are among Finnish thermal power plants' suppliers. Our partnership is quite smooth in electric energy in general, and has good prospects in nuclear energy."
