Vladimir Putin held a joint board meeting

Transcript of the beginning of the meeting:

Alexei Kudrin: Ladies and gentlemen, let me declare the joint meeting of the boards of the Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of Economic Development on the two ministries’ performance in 2010 and objectives for 2011 open.

In addition to the ministries’ heads and top officials, present here in this hall today are also representatives of many regional and subordinate agencies, international integration organisations and financial authorities from the Russian regions...

Transcript of the beginning of the meeting:

I would like to give the floor to Prime Minister Vladimir Putin.

Vladimir Putin: If you believe that as I look into this hall I think of dismissals then you’re wrong. I am fully aware of the crucial roles and jobs you have, as well as your colleagues working in finance and economy who are absent from this hall.

As you know, the government reported on its performance to the State Duma last week, on April 20 . We presented to the parliament and the entire Russian nation specific results of our work last year and outlined prospects for our economic development. Above all, these include the recovery from the crisis and the transition to post-crisis development. I would like to say a few words about it.

We need to consistently work toward reducing Russia’s dependence on the commodity market. We all understand this and have been discussing it for many years. In fact our common strategic goal is to ensure a sustainable and quality growth of our economy based on the domestic market and non-resource related sector.

In this respect I would like once again to point out that processing industries and trade have made a significant contribution to Russia’s economic growth in 2010. For example, the machine engineering sector rose by 25%. This means that the structure of Russia’s economy is gradually changing and in a way that we all want it to.

The profit rate of industrial enterprises reached 16.7% in 2010, which is 2.2% higher than in 2009. Moreover, trade turnover grew 4.4% in 2010.

This is why we intend to focus on supporting innovation and industrial modernisation, on establishing a strong financial and credit system and boosting the efficiency of development institutions. We need to increase the number of knowledge-intensive and well-paid jobs that will require highly educated employees and consistent professional training. Naturally, we also need to foster greater labour efficiency both in public and private sectors. This is one of the most crucial goals for the future. Strict requirements need to be set out in relation to the efficiency of government and market institutions, quality and accessibility of civil services and effectiveness of budget spending and investment programmes. I’m referring to investment programmes of state corporations and major companies with a government share.

We need to remove barriers in the way of business initiatives and investment influx, to support entrepreneurship and small and medium-sized businesses and to form a favourable business and investment climate. We also need to set up an unbiased system to assess competition in Russia both in the federal centre and in the regions, which is crucial. As you know well, some Russian regions have made a great progress in this area. And I’m pleased to note that it is no longer only Moscow that receives investment both from this country and abroad. Many regional authorities have achieved very good results in this sphere.

We need to reduce the government’s unjustified presence in the economy and excessive amounts of government property creating more room for private initiative. I’m not only referring to giving them more property but also to lifting barriers often established by quasi-state entities that occupy key sectors simply collecting rent fees and completely neglecting efficiency requirements. I would like to add that we managed to avert a full governmentalisation of Russia’s economy during the crisis…

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источник новости: http://premier.gov.ru/eng/events/news/14975/