Agenda: expanding the County Doctor and County Paramedic programmes, subsidised loans for systemically important businesses in the agricultural, transport and utilities sectors, supporting leaseholders, providing regions with more opportunities to use budget funds, and providing financial assistance to Crimea.
Mikhail Mishustin’s opening remarks:
Good afternoon, colleagues.
Government meeting
Today, we mark the Ambulance Worker Day. I would like to offer my wholehearted greetings to them on their professional holiday. They are always the first to offer assistance, at any time of day or night, helping people deal with the most challenging situations. Quite often, their ability to make a quick diagnosis and provide emergency care right there on the spot becomes a matter of life or death.
I would like to thank you for your very important work, with all the responsibility that goes with it, for your discipline, courage, and for caring about what you do, and of course I want to wish ambulance workers and their close ones good health and well-being.
Before we move to the agenda, I would like to mention the decision that has been made on the lack of human resources in the healthcare system, primarily in rural areas, which are worst affected by the shortage of specialists. We are creating conditions in order to attract them.
In keeping with the President’s instructions, we will expand the County Doctor and County Paramedic programmes. Graduates from medical universities and colleges who choose to work in their native communities, where they live, after graduating, will now be able to join these programmes. They will be entitled to the resettlement grants that were previously only open to those moving to a new location. Young doctors will receive a one-time benefit ranging from 1 million to 1.5 million roubles when joining a rural healthcare institution or working in remote and hard-to-access territories, as well as small cities. Paramedics, obstetricians, and nurses will receive between 500,000 and 750,000 roubles, depending on the location.
These benefits will be even higher for the Far East, the Extreme North and the Arctic, with 2 million roubles for doctors and 1 million roubles for mid-level medical staff.
Some 6 billion roubles per year will be earmarked in the three-year budget for making payments to specialists under all programmes of this kind. Further efforts at improvement will help us attract qualified professionals to work in our healthcare system, which promises better quality and availability of healthcare services for our people.
The Government will also provide additional support for the backbone agro-industrial companies. In mid-March, we already allocated over 26 billion roubles for these purposes. This funding enabled agricultural businesses to take out soft loans.
However, agricultural producers are spending more, due to logistics problems and because affiliated sectors are charging higher prices for produce, used to manufacture foodstuffs. At a recent meeting on developing the agricultural and fisheries sectors, the President set the task of supporting business activity in the Russian agro-industrial sector.
The Government is amending regulations on subsidies allocation, and this will allow the 1,300-plus major agricultural enterprises to borrow soft revolving loans worth up to seven billion roubles.
We hope that this decision will help the agro-industrial sector to continue maintaining long-term food security.
The agenda includes another measure dealing with essential transport companies and those of the housing and utilities sector.
They will also obtain soft loans at reduced, 11 percent interest for up to 12 months. Transport companies will be able to borrow 10 billion roubles, at most. The Government will set aside 16.7 billion roubles for these purposes.
This will further stabilise the national land, water and air transport system linking our vast country’s regions.
Housing and utilities companies will be able to obtain up to five billion roubles to replenish their circulating assets under the same favourable terms. We will allocate 2.85 billion roubles for these purposes, and this will make it possible to continue repairing facilities ahead of the autumn-winter season and to provide heat, electricity and hot water without interruption.
Today, we will also consider a draft law aimed at supporting leasing recipients, including car-sharing and taxi companies, as well as small and medium-sized businesses from different sectors, many of which work directly with people.
Most recently, these organisations have been exposed to a rise in lease payments. This is why we will enable businesses to redeem properties – in full or in part – without fines or penalties, even if this option was not originally envisaged in their contracts with leasing companies. This measure will be in effect until the end of this year.
We hope that during this period, market participants will be able to create new logistic chains, find new suppliers, and, most importantly, keep their customers. This will make it possible for businesses to continue to develop.
We will also discuss the Government’s draft amendments to the budget legislation.
During the meeting on socioeconomic support measures for the regions, the President instructed the Government to simplify the procedure for the regions’ interaction with the federal authorities, including with an eye to giving the Russian regions more leeway in managing their resources and launching new construction projects and programmes.
We will specify the procedure for providing inter-budget transfers. The regions will have an additional opportunity to allocate funds for implementing investment projects, including inputs in infrastructure renovation, in which both the federal centre and the Russian regions have a stake.
To expedite this year’s payments for delivered supplies, including building materials, we will also specify the treasury support procedure for government and municipal contracts. We will increase the level at which contracts require treasury support to 5 million roubles, or more than eight times. In all other cases, entrepreneurs with government or municipal contracts will be able to pay for delivered supplies directly to the suppliers without opening a personal account with the Federal Treasury.
Yet another adjustment is related to increasing federal budget spending. The draft law authorises the Government to use additional oil and gas revenues for loan substitution, repayment of public debt, and the execution of other obligations with a view to continuing to oppose the outside pressure and support people and businesses.
All these norms will be in effect until the end of this year.
Today, we will also discuss extending financial assistance to the Republic of Crimea. We will allocate over 2 billion roubles for capital repairs at more than 280 blocks of flats, including for replacing lifts.
In this context, it is extremely
important to persist with urban regeneration in the republic and to create
comfortable living spaces in its towns and villages. We will allocate another
1.9 billion roubles for these purposes. This money will help to improve parks,
gardens and courtyards in 23 populated localities on the peninsula. It is necessary
to extend the total funding to the region in a timely manner to help the
planned projects get off the ground as soon as possible.
