Agenda: Increasing the affordability of medicines, additional funding for free hospital medical services, creating forward-looking engineering schools, launching a nationwide poll on improvement facilities.
Excerpts from the transcript:
Meeting with deputy prime ministers
Mikhail Mishustin: Good afternoon, colleagues.
Let’s begin with an important issue, the provision of medicines for people. Objective delivery problems can arise because of the outside pressure on this country and disrupted logistic chains. We are taking action to provide people with affordable essential medicines. First of all, we are helping our companies that can manufacture their own medicines.
The Government is launching a special programme to support backbone enterprises in the pharmaceutical and medical industry, as well as distributors and chemists. All of them can obtain independent bank guarantees with low fees totalling one percent for enterprises and two percent for banks. A Government resolution has been signed, which sets forth regulations to reimburse loan agencies for such expenses.
The mechanism of independent guarantees makes it possible to protect the parties to the deals. If companies are unable to fulfil their contractual obligations for certain reasons, and if, to put it simply, they are in no position to pay, then the supplier will get the money from a bank. Pharmaceutical companies and chemists will be able to make use of this tool to minimise risks.
We are also taking action to supply the required medications. Understandably, we have so far failed to manufacture certain products or are not making enough of them. We continue to import some products. A decision has been made to expedite and simplify state registration procedures regarding medicines that are in short supply here. It will also be possible to import and sell packs of registered medicines that were originally to be sold in foreign states.
All this will make it possible to market medicines more quickly, so that our citizens can buy them.
We will continue to support our hospitals and health care centres operating under the compulsory health insurance system. We will allocate an extra 35 billion roubles for these purposes. Seventy-four Russian regions will receive the funds.
Last year and the beginning of 2022 were particularly challenging for the healthcare system. The rising number of patients placed increasing financial pressure on medical institutions. After all, they were helping a large number of people and had to buy the necessary medicines and conduct research. Federal funding will compensate the increase in expenses. Hospitals and health care centres will be able to continue working steadily so that people can get medical assistance free of charge.
Another important matter is how to provide the national economy with highly skilled technical specialists. This task has acquired vital importance in the face of external sanctions. It is crucial for Russia to achieve technological independence as soon as possible, based on a robust and diversified industry.
This country has always had the strongest engineering school in the world. Today, it is particularly essential that modern specialists have expertise in progressive technologies. As we delivered the Government’s report to the State Duma, we dwelled on how to integrate science, business, and education.
The Government is launching a federal project to create 30 advanced engineering institutes at universities across the country.
Young specialists need to learn how to operate complex systems from professionals of the highest calibre. The idea that we require this kind of mentoring was suggested by the manager of one of the assembly shops at the UEC-Perm Engines plant, with whom we were in contact during a visit to that company. Now, there is a concrete solution.
In all, the Scientific and Technological Development state programme will allocate over 36 billion roubles for this purpose over three years.
Mr Chernyshenko, please report in more detail on the plans for the implementation of this project.
Dmitry Chernyshenko: Mr Mishustin,
Yes, we have started working on this project together with the Ministry of Education and Science. Under the present circumstances, we will focus on the engineering institutes, which will be created with assistance from leading Russian companies and which need personnel, above all, in areas where we must build up our competencies, namely, microelectronics, pharmaceutics, genetics, agricultural engineering and many other critically important sectors. This will help strengthen our economic sovereignty.
To train this engineering elite, as you have pointed out, we are establishing so-called forward-looking engineering institutes. This is being done in partnership with our high-tech companies such as Yandex, Rostec, RZD, KamAZ and Sinara, which have a high level of world-class competencies. They are located in particular regions, and part of the training will take place at the production facilities of the best Russian companies that are located in close proximity to these firms.
Training will focus on the attainment of breakthrough engineering targets set by these companies or in partnership with them, which will be very interesting for the students. The goal is to ensure that highly skilled graduates of regional universities, trained under these innovative programmes, will opt for employment at the given industrial facilities in their native regions, as was the case in Perm, which you have mentioned. We are discussing the involvement of companies in this project. In particular, this issue has been considered by the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs.
It is very important that these institutes have the most advanced technology, including experimental laboratories, digital factories, technology parks with prototype production facilities, modern equipment, powerful computers and good Russian software. These technological standards will be comparable or of an even higher standard than those at companies where graduates go on to work in digital design or modelling jobs in the spheres of robotics, AI, big data, digital twins, electric vehicles, renewable energy and so on.
As soon as May, 2022, we will select 30 universities, which will participate in the establishment of pilot forward-looking engineering institutes. We will subsequently increase the number to 100. By the end of this year, we will create 30 new tuition programmes for the advanced training of engineering professionals. But our main task at this stage is to prepare academic staff and to attract practicing engineers to training at these new institutes. In other words, teachers must be as good as or even better than the leading professionals at the relevant companies.
Mr Mishustin, you mentioned substantial federal funding for this project. However, I would like to point out that we hope that partnership with our high-tech companies will allow us to attract extra-budgetary funding, because these companies have more interest in this project than we have.
To date, they have promised some 1.5 billion roubles of extra-budgetary funding. I believe that this sum will increase when we start implementing this project, and we will see the first effect of this programme as soon as in 2024, when the graduates of these forward-looking institutes start working at Russian companies. Our plans for 2030 involve the provision of advanced and on-site training for 10,000 teachers and for the graduation of more than 40,000 highly skilled professionals for the national economy, so that we can use this method at more than 100 technical universities throughout the country.
Mr Mishustin, the Government is monitoring this project closely. I am sure that our new engineering professionals will be able to deal with global challenges based on their universal high-tech engineering skills.
Mikhail Mishustin: Thank you, Mr Chernyshenko.
It is necessary to organise the implementation of all planned activities as quickly and efficiently as possible. The result should be hundreds of successful breakthrough projects in various areas.
There is one more topic. I referred to it during my report to the State Duma. I am talking about the improvement of our cities. We will continue this work in any situation, creating a comfortable living environment all over the country.
And people must have the opportunity to themselves determine the projects that need to be implemented. They know best what places need to be put in order first of all. And we must take their opinion into account. This is the feedback that the President emphasised there was a need for.
On April 15, the nationwide voting on improvement projects will begin. To enable more people to choose a new look for their neighbourhoods, they will be able to take part in voting not only on a special website, but also with the help of volunteers. We will actively involve them in this work. They will help people vote locally, on a tablet or smartphone. Tens of thousands of such assistants will be active across the country.
We are vigorously promoting this and we have discussed it on many occasions.
Mr Khusnullin, it is important to have the voting results implemented in good time. I ask you to take this issue under your personal control.
