In St. Petersburg, Minister of Regional Development Igor Slyunyayev held a meeting of the presidium of the board of the Ministry of Regional Development. The meeting participants discussed the main directions for the development of construction materials and industrial housing construction, personnel training in construction and in utilities, the implementation of Presidential Executive Order No. 600 of May 7, 2012, and the President’s Message to the Federal Assembly of December 12, 2012, in the regions of the Northwestern Federal District.
Opening the meeting, Mr Slyunyayev outlined the problems inherent in the construction sector, in particular, a shortage of modern materials production capacity and low production levels.
The second issue was low production quality, and outdated and inefficient technology. Only about 8% of companies are implementing innovative technology, and in other manufacturing sectors, this number is almost 16%.
In addition, Igor Slyunyayev highlighted a third issue: inconsistent territorial distribution of production facilities that result in high transport costs. Transport costs account for 18% of overall production costs on average. In some regions, it is comparable with the cost of the materials.
Other problems in the construction sector include the lack of long term financing for updating, a shortage of new vehicles and equipment, and an inefficient system for distributing state orders. Given these issues, it is often more profitable to make inexpensive materials of inferior quality or to purchase them abroad.
The Strategy for the Development of the Construction Industry and Industrial Housing Construction adopted in 2011 must become a comprehensive plan for updating the construction industry to 2020. Regional programmes for industry development will also serve to this end.
According to Igor Slyunyayev, the federal targeted programme for the development of the industry of construction materials and industrial housing construction should become the vehicle for this objective.
The participants of the meeting of the board presidium of the Ministry of Regional Development also discussed issues of professional training and development of sector science. Participants noted that to resolve the issues of the shortage of skilled personnel in the sector, it is necessary to develop professional standards for construction professions, create a system for training personnel in professional technical colleges and create conditions for attracting investment to this system.
Source: Ministry of Regional Development
