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
When Mikhail Gorbachev launched his reforms in the middle of the 1980s, he did not have any models to follow. No one before him had been faced with the task of overcoming an economic crisis in a country where free market and open society were non-existent for three generations. There was no one to learn from, and Gorbachev had to tread an unknown path.
During a visit to France, Prime Minister Putin will discuss a rescue plan for AvtoVAZ, a package of energy projects, including the South Stream pipeline, and the potential purchase of a Mistral amphibious assault ship.
After the United Russia Congress the president and the prime minister had lunch at a Petersburg restaurant.
The Primorye Territory is preparing to play host to Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, who will inspect the facilities being built for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in 2012 and launch the Sollers car assembly plant. Some experts in Primorye do not rule out the possibility that the Putin visit may cut the ground from beneath the feet of Primorye governor Sergey Darkin, who is seeking another term in office.
The state must jump over its own head to provide decent pensions while not burdening business with more tax. This is how Vladimir Putin commented on the changes in the social and tax systems planned for the next two years.
The Government is preparing a new administrative reform. Prime Minister Vladimir Putin told a Cabinet meeting yesterday that this reform is designed to curb the sway of the bureaucracy and make the work of the bureaucrats more transparent. Most importantly, the reform is meant to change the life of each and every one of us. The times when one had to take on a quest through countless offices to collect dozens of documents will soon become history. Intermediary firms attached to government agencies are banned as of today. To prevent administrative reform being quietly sabotaged, the proposals of the ad hoc commission on administrative reform will be the subject of a fast-track procedure that excludes cumbersome interagency approvals.
The coming month will see the second substantial increase of the pension within a year. It will benefit all pensioners. The basic state retirement pension will increase by more than 31%, bringing the average retirement pension to 6,617 roubles, while the average social pension will rise to 4,268 roubles, to be above the official subsistence minimum for the first time. The next pension increase is scheduled to take place a month later, on January 1, 2010. And there will be more increases next year. Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has stressed that this would eliminate poverty among pensioners.
Opening the annual Russian Pension Forum, Vladimir Putin reaffirmed the government’s commitment to implementing pension reform. The prime minister admitted that the tax burden remains the main problem for business in the course of pension reform. “We must move towards easing the fiscal load, but do it carefully,” Putin said.
Vneshekonombank (VEB) has been rewarded for its bailout operations. Ever since the crisis erupted, the Government has been turning this bank, commonly referred to as the Russian Development Bank, into a universal instrument for delivering anti-crisis assistance, including targeted assistance. So universal has VEB become to date, that it has complained more than once that it does not have enough funds to develop (its core activity) and to put up bailout money.
Gazprom will invest 33 billion roubles in 2010 in a railway on the Yamal Peninsula, for which it will expect compensation from Russian Railways (RZhD). But the latter, in turn, expects Gazprom to pay for future losses on that railway branch.
