The agenda includes draft federal laws and budget allocations.
Government meeting
Opening remarks by Mikhail Mishustin:
Good afternoon, colleagues,
Before we move on to the Government meeting’s agenda, I would like to inform you about a resolution that I have just signed. It is about helping find employment for the college and university graduates who completed their studies last year, but were unable to get a job due to the spread of the coronavirus.
To do this, we will expand the existing recruitment subsidy programme and extend it through to the end of the year. Previously, an employer could receive a state subsidy only when employing people who had lost their jobs and registered with an employment centre before 1 January 2021. Now, the subsidies will also apply to employment of college and university graduates who completed their studies last year and registered with employment centres, including after 1 January.
This subsidy includes three minimum wages multiplied by the regional ratio plus the value of insurance premiums and the number of employed citizens. The first payment is made after a person has worked one month, then after three months and six months. This resolution will help companies attract young people to their projects, and thousands of young professionals find work.
Let's move on to the agenda. The Government continues to support low-income families with children aged 3 to 7. They get a monthly cash allowance. Today, we will allocate over 55 billion roubles for these purposes, in addition to the 200 billion roubles that have already been set aside for the regions this year.
In his Address to the Federal Assembly, the President instructed the Government to make this support even more targeted, and the rules for issuing benefits have been improved as a result. Now, depending on the family situation, the size of the allowance can equal 50 percent, 75 percent or 100 percent of the regional subsistence minimum per child. This will help support particularly needy families and assist them in overcoming challenging financial situations.
There is another issue concerning the health of our people. The Government continues to modernise the infectious diseases service. The experience gained during battling the coronavirus has shown the importance of timely and effective detection of the infection and holding back its spread. To do so, it is imperative to continue providing equipment to the regional labs that engage in these activities.
Today, we will allocate almost 6 billion roubles from the federal budget to upgrade more than 80 labs at medical organisations. These funds will be used to modernise the instrumentation and purchase the latest equipment to detect, among other things, rare and novel infectious diseases. This is an important step towards creating a system that will protect people from potential risks.
Also today, we will review the national report on the results of the state agricultural programme in 2020. It is imperative to continue our efforts to create a competitive and high-tech agricultural complex. This task was set by the President.
Food security is our top priority. It is about providing a wide selection of high quality domestic products at affordable prices. Much has already been accomplished to successfully substitute agricultural imports. We provide ourselves in full with grains, vegetable oil, sugar, meat and fish. Milk production is growing at a slower pace, but fairly steadily.
Our agricultural produce enjoys high demand in international markets as well. However, providing Russian consumers with the necessary food is more important now.
The growth of entrepreneurial activity in this area is noteworthy. Largely thanks to the support of novice farmers, 17,000 new farms and consumer cooperatives were created in 72 regions last year alone.
Last year, over 5,500 investment projects in the agro-industrial complex received our support. More than 100 new projects will be launched soon, including dairy production, selection and seed production centres, and construction of agricultural warehouses or flax processing plants.
Other agricultural industry areas of focus, including equipment retrofits and development of rural areas, will get their fair share of our attention as well. Land reclamation efforts will continue in order to return hundreds of thousands of hectares of land back into agricultural use. More funds will be invested in the processing of raw materials, where strict control over the quality and safety of food is of paramount importance.
