The meeting focused on the implementation of the priority measures to ensure sustainable economic development and social stability.
From Dmitry Medvedev’s opening remarks:
Government meeting
Today we will discuss five bills that concern nine key items from the 60-item antirecession plan.
Regarding tax initiatives: The Government will not increase the corporate tax burden and will also propose tax concessions where possible.
One of the proposals is to give air carriers VAT deductions on domestic flights until 2017. This will strengthen them financially, enhance the economic efficiency of domestic flights and increase accessibility for the public.
Another bill would help air carriers and other transport companies gradually change their operation to ensure passenger safety. This initiative includes technical deferments.
As for taxes on small and medium-sized businesses, it has been proposed that we give the regions broader authority within the so-called special tax programmes, for example, to select types of business for these programmes, to set their own tax rates, incentives and the like. The regions will be able to use graduated rates, for example, under a simplified tax schedule.
One of the bills would empower the Government to determine conditions for the import of equipment, work and services. This proposal would be approved for large investment projects that are co-financed by the budget and for strategic oil and gas exploration and production projects.
We’ve decided to establish a special coordination agency at the Government to implement the import substitution policies. I will personally supervise this project. The new agency will select investment projects for a special register of priority projects. All of them will receive budgetary allocations. As a result, this will benefit all Russian companies, which will be able to take part in acquisition tenders held for major projects.
Assistance to small and medium-sized companies will be increased through legislation lifting restrictions. Under the bill, the Government will be able to determine the amount of revenue per company, which ranks them among small or medium-sized enterprises (SME), not every five years but whenever necessary. This will enable us to increase the working capital limit in the near future, and hence give more SMEs access to government incentives, priority access to state contracts, financial assistance and the like. We also have a proposal to allow SMEs in Skolkovo to attract investment from large companies without impairing their SME status. And lastly, Russian and foreign companies will be able to increase their equity stakes in SMEs from 25 to 49 percent.
Government meeting
All these measures are aimed to lift obstacles that are hindering the growth of investment in the Russian economy.
I have signed two resolutions within the antirecession plan to support automobile and special equipment manufacturers. One resolution concerns co-financing the purchase of natural gas vehicles in cooperation with the regions. A programme that was launched a year ago has been rather successful. We have decided to extend it to this year and to allocate 3 billion roubles for it.
The other resolution will extend the vehicle scrappage programme, which has been successful for two terms, through 2015.
Subsidies will also be approved for the auto industry to partially subsidies spending on the purchase of new vehicles.
One more issue concerns support for families with two or more children. At our previous meeting, we discussed a bill to allow these families to request a one-time payment of 20,000 roubles from the maternity capital benefit. Today we’ll discuss a bill designed to improve the procedure for the issuance of the maternity capital. Under the current legislation, maternity capital can be used to pay debts and interest on loans taken out to build or buy housing. However, maternity capital can only be used as a down payment on a mortgage loan after a child turns three. The proposed bill would revoke this provision.
