Mikhail Mishustin’s opening remarks:
Meeting with deputy prime ministers on current issues
Good afternoon, colleagues.
Let us begin with a vital issue: support for children with grave and rare diseases. When a child has been diagnosed with such a grave disease, this is a serious test, and a financial challenge for the family. Such diseases require specific treatment. And the Government has taken measures to ensure that these children receive the necessary assistance.
We will allocate an additional 22 billion roubles for this purpose. The Circle of Kindness Foundation, which has been established at the President’s initiative, is using these funds to supply medicines, medical equipment and technical rehabilitation systems for children with severe illnesses. Thanks to the foundation, over a thousand children have received expensive treatment. This practice will continue.
Of course, we will also continue to improve the system of medical assistance for our underage citizens. By the President’s decision, the Dmitry Rogachev National Research Centre was established over 10 years ago. It has become a leading establishment in the field of paediatric haematology and oncology. Its specialists are helping children with very serious diseases from all regions of the country. The Government will allocate over 560 million roubles for the reconstruction of the centre. Its improvement will help introduce the latest and most effective methods of treatment and save more lives.
Colleagues, during a government meeting on the [socioeconomic] development of the regions and mortgage lending, held last week, we had an in-depth discussion on the need to closely monitor changes in the terms of mortgage lending and to promptly react to them, in particular, to changes in interest rates. This likewise concerns the Government’s support measures for the agricultural industry. It is necessary to strengthen this industry, not only in the interests of the domestic market, where we must deliver affordable high-quality food, but it is also becoming increasingly more important for our foreign trade.
Our agricultural companies are implementing several projects based on easy term loans. Our agricultural producers and processing companies need these funds to purchase machinery and equipment, reduce transportation costs as well as for other purposes.
To maintain the pace of the Industry’s development, we have decided to allocate another 10 billion roubles to it. These funds will be used to subsidise the lending organisations that issue low-interest loans to agro-industrial companies. The initial allocations for this year were approved at some 80 billion roubles. We believe that additional funds will help subsidise some 30,000 low-interest loans for our farmers. They must not have financing problems, or otherwise, the production cycle will be disrupted.
