Agenda: Renewing and expanding the employment incentive programme, Concept for Creative Industries’ Development, promoting domestic tourism.
Mikhail Mishustin’s opening remarks
Dmitry Chernyshenko’s report on measures to develop domestic tourism
Meeting with deputy prime ministers
Mikhail Mishustin: Good afternoon, colleagues.
We will begin with an important topic. The Government continues to support the labour market. A resolution renewing and expanding the employment incentive programme has been signed. Launched in 2021, this programme seeks to ensure that the President’s instruction on restoring employment is carried out.
To this end, we provided subsidies to employers offering jobs to those who were officially unemployed as of the beginning of the year. Companies and individual entrepreneurs receive three minimum wages per each such employee in several increments.
Now they can benefit from this support mechanism when hiring people who registered with the employment office before 1 August, 2021.
Moreover, there will be subsidies for employing people with disabilities, single mothers or parents with three or more underage children or children with disabilities. It will not matter when a person registered with an employment office. Finding work is often a challenge for these people due to their life circumstances, and this measure will address this issue.
The labour market is much better at present than it was a year or 18 months ago. We will keep doing everything necessary to fully overcome the consequences of the coronavirus pandemic.
Moving on to the next subject, the Government has approved the Concept for Creative Industries’ Development for the next nine years. This is yet another critical instrument for achieving the national goals as set by the President. The Concept will help create new jobs, including in creative SMEs. Importantly, it will offer people new opportunities for fulfilling their potential and unleashing their talent, paving the way to new life-changing knowledge, ideas and technology.
The concept sets forth state support mechanisms for creative industries of all kinds. This covers art, including theatre, music, cinema, painting, as well as historical and cultural heritage, and hands-on industries such as architecture, design and tourism. It also includes the media and digital content production, from software development to blogs and videogames.
Several national projects and state programmes already offer support measures of this kind. However, we need to do more.
Creative industries account for over 6.5 percent of the global GDP. In some countries this share has been growing even during the pandemic.
It is not a coincidence that the UN declared 2021 the International Year of Creative Economy for Sustainable Development.
Russia has everything it needs to effectively advance in this sector, building on, among other things, the high level of education, and its rich historical and cultural heritage. Our goal is to create conditions enabling people to benefit from these resources in order to increase the share of creative entrepreneurship across the economy.
In addition to this, we need to devise effective intellectual property protection mechanisms, which has special importance considering that today, apart from moving across physical borders, pirated goods also circulate in the digital world.
By seeking to address all these matters in a comprehensive manner, we hope to be able to establish new growth drivers for our regions, and help them create the relevant infrastructure, including urban planning, housing and road construction and setting up creative high-technology clusters.
Of course, we will continue to develop IT systems, digitising archives and museum collections so that people from across Russia can access them.
There is also a date I wanted to mention today.
Today we are marking World Tourism Day. I would like to congratulate all those working in the hospitality sector on this occasion. More than 2 million people work in the tourism sector, and this number reaches four or five million during the summer season when people head to resorts.
In keeping with the Presidential instructions, the Government is taking measures to promote domestic tourism. This includes making travelling in our country more convenient and tourist-friendly, as well as improving service quality and upgrading infrastructure.
Russia has immense potential in this sphere, with destinations for engaging in outdoor activities, sightseeing, beach vacations and health resorts. Every region is unique and interesting. To unleash this potential, we launched the Tourism and Hospitality Industry National Project this year.
Mr Chernyshenko, could you please provide us with a deeper insight into this sector?
Dmitry Chernyshenko: Mr Mishustin, colleagues, allow me to congratulate the industry’s personnel and to thank each worker for his or her personal contribution to establishing the national hospitality industry and, of course, I would also like to thank our tourists who support it.
We have seen positive trends during the first six months. According to the regulator, over 25 million people stayed at hotels during this period of time. This exceeds 2020 volumes by 90 percent and is just three percent short of the pre-crisis 2019 level.
As you have mentioned, the Government has accomplished a lot to promote the development of tourism. Just five months ago now, in May, we launched the Tourism and Hospitality Industry National Project. The project is to receive 529 billion roubles by 2030. The total sum, that will include extra-budgetary funding, will exceed two trillion roubles. Under the project, we orchestrate other state programmes involving over 17 different federal executive agencies. The industry’s representatives and those of the Russian regions already have a positive opinion of its results.
State support measures have provided investors with unprecedented terms for obtaining soft loans at 3-5 percent interest for building the tourism infrastructure. Applications stipulating investment in excess of 40 billion roubles throughout 2021 alone have already been submitted. Departmental, public and business initiatives are also being backed by grants worth over 1.2 billion roubles.
People can travel all across the country under preferential terms stipulating 20 percent cashback on tourism services. The programme covers 1.6 million tourists who have received refunds worth over seven billion roubles.
As per the President’s instruction, the price of children’s camp vouchers was halved this summer.
A programme of subsidised charter flights now operating in 68 regions allows tour operators to offer affordable tour packages for Russian citizens, especially to far-away and remote areas.
The Tourism RF Corporation is to sign 50 corporate agreements on tourism projects before the year is out, and these projects will get financial backing for their implementation.
As of 1 January, a new state programme called Tourism Development will swing into action. The Ministry of Construction, Housing and Utilities which is responsible for its implementation also oversees the federal project Tourism Infrastructure Development in the national project. This is a high-priority aspect of our work.
The Government Commission on Tourism Development whose members have started meeting regularly involves the heads of all the regions. Its members make decisions regarding the development of tourism in the Russian regions. And we can see that tourism is a driving force behind the economic development of many of the regions.
It is important to note that the national project made it possible to unite the industry’s members and to synchronise state and private resources for expanding inbound tourism and to accommodate foreign visitors.
Mr Mishustin, most importantly, thanks to the President’s support and your constant assistance, we have all the required resources for facilitating interesting, comfortable and affordable all-year-round nationwide trips for Russian citizens and foreign visitors.
Mikhail Mishustin: Thank you, Mr Chernyshenko.
Of course, we have to cooperate actively with the regions when it comes to the development of tourism. They realise their own advantages and the best routes that require to be prioritised to make travelling comfortable. Tourism can become a mainstay for the economic development of many of our territories.
And, of course, it is vital to ensure safe travels nationwide. First of all, this implies active outdoor leisure activities and recreation.
