Deputy Prime Minister reports on steps dealing with natural disasters
Igor Naumov
The Government Presidium met yesterday, mainly to consider the authorities' fulfilment of anti-crisis measures. Prime Minister Vladimir Putin listened to reports ranging from the rehabilitation of problem banks and construction of transport facilities in Sochi to the tests of a new missile. Reassuring reports gave a full picture of the Government's effective and exhaustive moves. Mr Putin's Government cannot, by definition, be otherwise in Russian eyes.
Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin opened the discussion on anti-crisis themes. He spared no description to show that the situation in the banking sector, despite the global financial crisis, was under control. VEB, he said, was receiving the resources to maintain the liquidity of lending institutions, while the Deposit Insurance Agency was given an additional 65.9 billion roubles to rehabilitate problem banks. "We are managing to maintain stability in the banking system. Forecasts that there will be many problem banks are not proving to be true," Mr Kudrin told the Prime Minister.
Satisfied with the report, Mr Putin moved on to small business loans and listened to Economic Development Minister Elvira Nabiullina. The Minister said that VEB's board was expected to increase the loan portfolio for small businesses from 9 billion to 30 billion roubles. The Prime Minister demanded more precise figures on the micro-financing fund, which issues loans to small firms ranging from 200,000 roubles to 1 million roubles. Ms Nabiullina promised to increase the number of "small grants and small loans". "It is necessary to develop this system," Mr Putin cut in to keep up the positive mood. "It has proven its worth in some countries. Some people even received a Nobel Prize for it."
The next reporter was Deputy Prime Minister Igor Sechin, who was concerned not with the financial crisis, but the elimination of the consequences of natural disasters and the failures of heat supply networks in the cities of European Russia and Russia's Far East. In this case, Mr Sechin acted on behalf of Emergency Situations Minister Sergei Shoigu, who was, until recently, in charge of work to wipe out the effects of natural disasters and repair hot water systems that went down during the peak of the heating season.
Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Ivanov, who traditionally oversees military technical development in the Government, did not encroach on the powers of Defence Minister Anatoly Serdyukov when he told the Prime Minister about the successful tests of the new Bulava missile, carried out on Friday by the Northern Fleet submarine Dmitry Donskoi. It was the ninth successful launch, Mr Ivanov said, "and all warheads arrived on target". The tests are not yet finished, but the Navy is planning to start purchasing the Bulava next year and install them on nuclear-powered submarines. However, what pleased Mr Putin particularly were not the tests themselves, but a small remark by the Deputy Prime Minister that financing was on schedule and rendered without interruptions. This is the main effectiveness indicator of the Government in general, and the Prime Minister in particular.
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Mr Kudrin spared no description to show that the situation in the banking sector was under control.