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
The government will review the approved projects requesting allocations from the Investment Fund and suspend the receipt of new requests. It will consider only the projects aimed at supporting crisis-affected sectors, notably engineering, metals production, and the production of construction materials. However, these requests will be considered "especially carefully."
Very soon the Government will approve a competition development programme for Russia. At a meeting of the Council on Competition and Entrepreneurship in the White House yesterday, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin accepted proposals and requests from businessmen.
The global crisis and grain overproduction have made grain exports unprofitable. Despite this, Russia's agro-industrial sector plans to export 10 million tonnes of grain in 2008. At its meeting yesterday, the Government decided to compensate farms for their losses from the state budget at the expense of the taxpayers.
Yesterday the Cabinet met in full session to review the fulfilment of the federal budget in the first nine months of the year and the use of the Investment Fund. However, the ministers found time to discuss other details. A heated discussion developed on one of the vital issues of the day, powdered milk.
Yesterday, the Federation Council approved and President Medvedev signed into law a bill implementing Prime Minister Vladimir Putin's tax initiatives - first and foremost, reducing the profit tax by 4%. The Ministry of Finance has promised the senators, worried by the fact that the emergency tax reduction is being carried out, among other things, at the expense of the prepared regional budgets, to compensate for the regions' losses. In order to do that and to balance the federal budget, Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin is ready to spend up to 1 trillion roubles in 2009 from the Reserve Fund. Just a week ago, the Deputy Prime Minister mentioned half the sum needed for such support.
On November 26, 2008, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin convened, for the first time during his second term in office, a meeting of the government's Council on Competition and Entrepreneurship.
The Chairman of United Russia, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, will hold a meeting with the heads of all his public reception offices in early December, according to Kommersant's information. It will recognize the best workers who handle citizens' problems and set the tasks for 2009 in relation to their work in the crisis period.
Russian oil producers, terrified by the dramatic price fall, are lobbying for another cut in oil export tax, with Deputy Prime Minister Igor Sechin taking their side.
On Tuesday, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin inspected a section of the Russian-Finnish border and discussed ways to optimise the state border infrastructure at a meeting of the border control commission.
The much-touted purge of the ruling party has been put on hold due to the financial crisis, which allegedly makes it necessary for UR to close its ranks. Experts attribute it to the growing in-fighting among the elites for control of the party and the country's political future. Meanwhile, United Russia is under the watchful eye of its leader: the deputies will now have to give an account of what they did during the period allocated for trips to the regions.
The recent initiatives launched by President Dmitry Medvedev and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin suggest that the country is drifting away from a presidential toward a parliamentary republic. Both leaders speak in unison on the main issues of the government structure. Meanwhile, if the President and the Prime Minister seem to see eye-to-eye on everything, the inference should not be made that there is no rivalry between ruling clans, NG experts point out.
Russia's numerous customs checkpoints are having trouble inspecting and handling all consignments. Separate measures have been unable to rectify the situation. We must introduce new technologies, create a reliable infrastructure, and make security a priority. Prime Minister Vladimir Putin made these statements at a meeting of the State Border Commission at the Constantine Palace in St Petersburg.
On Tuesday, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin signed a long-term concept of Russia's social and economic development through 2020. Carefully developed by the Economic Development Ministry over the past two years, the document is based on an average projected global economic growth of 4.2% and a global oil price of $99 per barrel from 2008 to 2010.
On December 5, the White House intends to go into battle against the crisis in a regular way. Before that, however, the Government will hold a series of meetings to gather information on how industries performed from September to November, and to sum up proposals for dealing with the economic crisis. The proposals will be collected by the Economic Development Ministry, analysed by the Economic Development and Finance Ministries, and coordinated by First Deputy Prime Minister Igor Shuvalov. Anti-crisis planning, involving 11 ministries, eight deputy prime ministers, and one state corporation, will last three weeks and end with a meeting chaired by Prime Minister Vladimir Putin.
Vladimir Putin spent yesterday in his native St Petersburg, where he attended a conference on international law that marked the 140th anniversary of the 1868 St Petersburg Declaration that renounced the use of certain explosive projectiles in times of war. He used the occasion to stress that plans to deploy the third positioning area of a missile defence system in Eastern Europe were "directed against Russia's strategic potential and we cannot but give it an adequate response." He warned: "No one knows who the winner will be, but it is obvious that the world as a whole, and above all Europe, will be the loser."
Prime Minister Vladimir Putin detailed Moscow's view on the European Collective Security Treaty. Speaking about foreign policy issues at an international conference on humanitarian law in St Petersburg, he formulated the so-called "Three No" principles. According to the Prime Minister, the treaty should be based on three principles: "First, it should guarantee that one nation's security is not ensured at the expense of another's. Second, it should prevent any country, military union, or coalition from taking any actions that could weaken common security and unity. And third, it should prevent the development and expansion of military unions from harming other parties in the agreement."
Whether you are United Russia's friend, foe, or are totally indifferent, you cannot deny that it is more than a party in power. It has no rivals to speak of, and possesses an absolute majority in the State Duma and all regional legislatures. It represents every group in the Russian ruling elite, and its leader has Russia's highest public rating. These are hard facts, whether you like them or not.
The Kremlin hopes the global economic crisis could force Washington and Brussels to partially restrain its expansion into the East. Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin urged European countries to put an end to NATO's further expansion, saying if the US decides against basing anti-missile systems in the Czech Republic and in Poland, Russia will not deploy Iskander missiles in Kaliningrad and will disband the Strategic Missile Forces division in the Kaluga Region.
Russia constantly comes up with foreign policy initiatives, and should continue to do so to restore trust between Russia and the West. The international security system has long been in need of an overhaul, if not of replacement, so any proposals merit close attention.
As the crisis reaches its peak, Rostekhnologii is taking over 426 enterprises whose debt exceeds 120 billion roubles. The state corporation hopes for state help.
