Economy-class housing should not cost more than 30,000 roubles per square metre. By saying this at a conference on national projects in Sochi, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has "put a new target" for government officials. The government is even ready to scrape the bottom of the barrel and provide additional funds for this purpose. There will be no economising on Russians' health either.
"About 450 billion roubles have been allocated this year for national projects, it's quite a powerful lot of money, and we have not economized on these projects. Clever people do understand that this sum is enough," Mr Putin said before the ministers started to report on how the money had been spent.
Even before Viktor Basargin, Minister of Regional Development, picked up his notes, Mr Putin made some remarks. He said, for example, that 21.6 million sq m of housing had been commissioned in the first six months of this year, about as much as same period last year. However, there were no grounds for optimism because builders were just completing projects launched two or three years ago. The current volume of construction dropped 20% and mortgage loan activity plunged six fold.
"The cost of economy-class housing should not exceed 30,000 roubles per square metre; this can and must be achieved without compromising quality or comfort. We must strive to make such apartments affordable for no less than 40% of all Russians. It is not all that easy to implement this task today, the situation is more complicated and the budget lacks funds. Nevertheless, this is a major objective which must be fulfilled by any means possible," Mr Putin said.
The ministry had a ready answer to this directive. According to its estimates, by subsidising interest loan rates by 4%-5%, the government can bring nearly all buyers back into the market.
"Today, the average mortgage rate is 14.6%, but we think it should not exceed 10% in order to revive demand. The 4%-5% difference will take 7 billion roubles," Mr Basargin said in presenting his estimates.
"Seven billion roubles for the whole country for a year, and perhaps, for next year, too," Vladimir Putin said, as if thinking aloud. "And, of course, we will meet our obligations to our servicemen. They must get permanent homes by 2010," he said.
Another big problem in Russia is public health.
"A lot of the population needs medical treatment, either in hospitals or in polyclinics, while only 24.2% are considered basically healthy," said Tatyana Golikova, Minister of Healthcare and Social Development, in her far from optimistic statement.
Mr Putin immediately offered money to support the healthcare system.
"Twelve billion roubles from budget reserves will be used to compensate shortfalls in territorial medical insurance fund incomes, another 2.2 billion roubles, for high-tech medical assistance, and another 2.3 billion roubles, to provide disabled persons with special rehabilitation equipment.
Within the Education national project, the government will have to organise mandatory courses of instruction for people wishing to adopt a child. In most regions, this education is provided only at the prospective parents' request. Others assume they know what to do, and this is bad for children. In 2008 alone, 3,500 children were adopted and moved to an adopting family in the Sverdlovsk Region, but in the same year about 350 adoption decisions were cancelled, 250 of them at the initiative of the adoptive parents.
Education Minister, Andrei Fursenko, did not say how much money would be needed for this project but he thinks the government will not refuse to fund it.
Anastasia Savinykh
