The agenda includes federal draft laws and budget expenditures.
Mikhail Mishustin’s opening remarks:
Good morning, colleagues,
Government meeting
It has been decided to resume international flights. When making this decision, we took into account the epidemiological situation, the number of COVID cases and the principle of reciprocity. As of 1 August, flights will be made from airports in Moscow, the Moscow Region, St Petersburg and Rostov-on-Don. This step will also allow us to bring Russian nationals back home faster.
The Government has introduced special regulations in the tourism and hotel business. They will be in force until 31 December 2021. The relevant resolutions have been signed.
Within two months from their publication, tour operators will have to return the money to customers for any unmade trips, or organise a new trip before the end of the next year. The same scheme applies to hotels if customers cancel their booking.
Tour operators and hotels must return the money to those in difficult situations and people over 65 within 90 days.
A few words about the state programme on the improvement of housing conditions.
We are talking about compensating 35 percent of housing prices to young families with children, first of all, families with many children. The Government resolution has been signed that allows them to use the payment to purchase or build not only economy class housing, but also higher class housing, as well as refinance mortgage loans.
Five billion roubles will be allocated for this purpose before the close of the year. It will help over 15,000 young families.
At today’s Government meeting we will discuss the allocation of almost 800 million roubles for holiday pay and compensation for the unused holidays for the workers of social facilities who worked with coronavirus patients and people from risk groups. When calculating holiday pay and compensation, we will take into account the incentives for special working conditions and the additional workload.
The Government will also allocate an additional 18.5 billion roubles to provide monthly benefits for children aged 3 to 7 to low-income families. This adds up to about 5,5oo roubles per child depending on the region. Such benefits were introduced on 1 June at the initiative of the President and are available to families whose average monthly per capita income is below subsistence minimum.
Overall, this year, families with almost 3 million children will receive this state support. About 135.5 billion roubles will be allocated for this from federal funds alone.
We will also consider a number of matters we discussed with State Duma deputies during the Government's report.
We will allocate about 300 million roubles to complete the previously concluded contracts in 14 regions to create a single digital circuit in healthcare. This should reduce doctors’ paperwork and make it easier to find their patients’ records and study their entire medical histories. Patients will also have less waiting time when they visit medical facilities.
One more topic that we discussed in parliament is the federal support for the regions.
The Government will allocate a second tranche of 100 billion roubles to help the regions of the Russian Federation to balance their budgets and compensate for the decline in revenues due to the coronavirus outbreak.
When distributing the first 100 billion roubles, we used each region’s direct losses as a criterion. The distribution criteria for the second tranche were considered jointly with the State Duma and the Federation Council. The size of the subsidy will now be determined, not by the amount of losses, but by the overall socioeconomic situation. We will channel more funds to the regions that have it the hardest. Financial support will help ensure the sustainability of their budgets.
The next question is about the labour market. As I said in my report to the State Duma, a number of measures have been taken to support the unemployed and one of them is a rise in their benefits. The Government will provide some 20 billion roubles more to the regions to pay unemployment benefits in full. It is important that people receive their pay on time.
Today we will also consider the possibility of allocating almost 200 million roubles for major repairs and new equipment for the Kurgan emergency care hospital. We promised to send them the money during our working trip to Kurgan. The hospital is in urgent need of repair; it has to be put in order.
