“It is clear that bad roads objectively hinder Russia’s economic development and are having a negative impact on safety and the environment. Of course, we have been working recently to improve the situation. We have gathered good speed in road building, even in spite of the crisis.” Vladimir Putin At a meeting on improving the efficiency of road building and maintenance in Tver
Vladimir Putin’s opening remarks:
Ladies and gentlemen,
We have been shown prospective road-building and other equipment to be manufactured here, at this plant in Tver. I hope you will start to manufacture it soon...
“It is clear that bad roads objectively hinder Russia’s economic development and are having a negative impact on safety and the environment. Of course, we have been working recently to improve the situation. We have gathered good speed in road building, even in spite of the crisis.”
Vladimir Putin At a meeting on improving the efficiency of road building and maintenance in Tver
Vladimir Putin’s opening remarks:
Ladies and gentlemen,
We have been shown prospective road-building and other equipment to be manufactured here, at this plant in Tver. I hope you will start to manufacture it soon. We have also attended the signing of two agreements to produce this equipment with American and German partners. And now we will discuss the purpose to which it should be applied – road construction, which is one of the primary industries for which this equipment is manufactured. This is a very important issue, but I don’t need to tell that to this professional audience.
The first Social Business Forum was held in Moscow last week , at which we discussed the country’s development strategy. I will not tell you anything new. Everyone knows it, and business leaders and heads of regional administrations all spoke about this painful issue – namely, inadequate infrastructure, and in this case bad roads.
It is clear that bad roads objectively hinder Russia’s economic development and are having a negative impact on safety and the environment. Of course, we have been working recently to improve the situation. We have gathered good speed in road building, even in spite of the crisis. We allocated considerable funds towards the construction, modernisation, and maintenance of roads: as much as 2.7 trillion roubles from 2002 to 2010. This year, another 700 billion will be allocated from federal and regional funds, which is 40% more than last year.
You know that we have completed the Chita-Khabarovsk highway. I am pleased to repeat that it was a major event for the country. For the first time in its history, Russia’s territory from the Far East to Kaliningrad is linked by a single road network. That provides a great impetus to the development of our Far Eastern and Siberian territories. The beltway around St Petersburg and transport networks around Novosibirsk, Krasnoyarsk, Irkutsk, and other major cities have been completed. This year will see continued work to upgrade the roads in major administrative centres across the country. Funding for these purposes has already been allocated. Of course, the use of this money needs to be closely monitored and, in this regard, I urge you to establish effective citizens’ control.
I was recently in Pskov , where I met a group of young people who started out as an informal association, but have now, jointly with the governor, organised systematic monitoring of the progress of road construction. I urge all the heads of agencies, ministries, and regions to do everything in their power to support as many such informal groups as possible and to help them in their work.
Massive road construction has been launched as part of the preparations for the Universiade in Kazan, the APEC forum in Vladivostok, and the Olympic Games in Sochi.
Even so, we are aware that what has been done is not enough. We need a real and significant breakthrough here: not just big, one-off projects but steady development and drastic renewal across the country’s road networks – on federal, regional, rural, and city roads. The geographical range of new construction must be expanded (especially to the Far East and Siberia) and road approaches to the western and southern borders must be modernised, including on transcontinental transport corridors.
Special attention will be paid to the comprehensive development of transport hubs in major cities, above all in Moscow and the Moscow Region and St Petersburg and the Leningrad Region . I should stress that it is important that all neighbouring regions competently dovetail their construction plans to prevent absurd situations in which two neighbouring regions in the Russian Federation have each built roads, but there remains a gap of two or three kilometres between them, turning them into dead ends. Considering the size of the country (we have a colossal territory), building a road network is a challenge, but we must achieve a qualitative change for the better within the next five or ten years.
The available funds make it realistic to double the current amount of road construction. While in 2002-2010, about 25,000 km of federal and regional roads were built; by 2020, 18,000 km of roads should be completed under federal projects alone, and these will be roads of an entirely new class, with modern interchanges, a larger capacity, and more lanes. The plans are ambitious. They will undoubtedly require a boost in the qualified workforce, new technologies, modern machinery, and, of course, modern principles of organisation in road construction and maintenance. These modern principles must be put into practice. Of course, we should make sure that we are not applying random prices for one kilometre of road and that the road quality is up to the highest world standards.
Obviously, we need to improve the procedure for contracting construction and maintenance. It is a crucial question, in fact. We should select contractors who offer not only the best terms but have the necessary production base, technologies, and reputation on the market.
In order to concentrate funds on road building and maintenance, it has been decided to create federal and regional road funds. We estimate that by 2020, we will be able to accumulate more than 8 trillion roubles in these funds and use that money for construction. The federal road fund will amount to some 4.5 trillion roubles, 2.7 trillion of which will go towards construction and renovation and 1.8 trillion of which will be applied to repair and maintenance. The anticipated size of regional road funds is estimated at 3.9 trillion roubles. However, these sources alone will not suffice to address all our problems, so we should make active use of public-private partnerships. We are talking above all about concession schemes. Early positive examples can already be cited.
We are also going to switch to the modern model of life-cycle contracts: i.e., long-term contracts for the building and subsequent operation of roads for a term of 10-30 years. The contractor uses his own and borrowed money to build a road and subsequently is responsible for its maintenance, while the state pays for this work in equal instalments throughout the effective period of the contract. That should eradicate the time-server mentality among contractors because the best companies would have a stake in high-quality construction so as to spend less on maintenance later. Of course, for its part, the state should ensure impartial control, so I am instructing the Transport Ministry to submit proposals on organising the comprehensive state monitoring of the country’s roads, including through the potential use of the GLONASS system.
Regulating the sector is a major topic. Many standards are outdated, inherently antiquated, and merely impede the implementation of projects and the start of new construction. These outdated schemes are an obstacle to the introduction of new technologies. What do we sometimes see? We want to use modern materials – new types of asphalt, bitumen – and we see these materials at every tour or exhibition of this kind, as we did today, but they are not mentioned in the relevant documents and old protocols. And that’s it. From that moment on, contractors have to go from door to door getting approval for everything they do, and it becomes an ordeal. Technical regulations must be adopted more quickly, and foreign experience should be used wherever possible.
Of course, the broad use of so-called unique specifications should be allowed. Indeed, why should one and the same standard design be approved ten times for each time a new construction project is started? It makes no sense, except for bureaucratic sense at its worst. I think that in order to speed up the implementation of new projects, a databank of such standard design solutions should be collected. You buy a prepared set of documentation, apply it to the terrain, and then you can begin construction. Such mechanisms, among other things, will make it possible to form a transparent system of pricing and quality standards.
Besides, state expert examination should take into account the whole life cycle of the road and avoid creating obstacles to the introduction of innovations in construction. I ask you to submit concrete proposals on that score. And, of course, it is necessary to eliminate factors that artificially inflate costs and prolong the time required for construction. For example, the current mechanisms of designating land for road construction will spawn speculation and abuses of all kinds. We have seen the same thing happen again and again. The road is only in its design stage, but the land has already been bought by a third party. By whom? Clearly, by someone who is aware of the planned construction. Ordinary working people, like the people I met at the factory today, do not buy anything. The buyers are those who have access to insider information.
On the other hand, it is hard to gain access to so-called common mineral resources, like sand and gravel quarries. That market is monopolised locally, and, consequently, prices jump sixfold at a time. In some places, prices increase by up to six times. I am instructing you to prepare proposals on cutting the time it takes to appropriate and reserve lands for the construction of new roads. Mr Levitin (Transport Minister), please think it through and introduce the necessary proposal. And also a proposal on simplifying the procedure for obtaining rights to extract common minerals when implementing major infrastructure projects and federal targeted programmes.
And finally, there is one more point. In implementing ambitious road development plans, we create massive demand for road-building machinery. Our machine builders should be ready. But make a note of this: it is wrong to force people to buy old and inefficient machinery. It should never be done.
To be the true masters of our own Russian market, our factories should renew their product ranges, do more to modernise their production, and introduce high-tech solutions and standards. We were just talking with experts – and workers – at the factory, and they asked us to secure the domestic market on their behalf. We cannot allow foreign producers to dump on our market. Yes, fair competition is possible and, indeed, necessary, but dumping cannot be tolerated. Mr Ivanov (addressing Sergei Ivanov), I ask you to give it thought and come up with corresponding proposals.
For our part, we must and will help our machine-building enterprises, for example, in creating joint ventures and in cooperating with our leading foreign partners.
As I have said, today we witnessed the signing of two major contracts on the creation of new production facilities, and we hope that within six or nine months, both projects will be up and running.
more to be posted soon...
источник новости: http://premier.gov.ru/eng/events/news/15415/
