Agenda: Indexing social payments, modernising the primary healthcare sector, measures to improve the environmental situation in the regions, setting up a science and production centre to develop new agricultural produce brands and manufacturing and processing technologies.
Mikhail Mishustin’s opening remarks:
Meeting with deputy prime ministers on current issues
Good afternoon, colleagues, I will begin with an important decision that concerns millions of Russian citizens.
Last week, the President chaired a meeting of the State Council Presidium, and he instructed the relevant officials to pass an entire package of social support measures.
The President noted that efforts to raise people’s well-being and quality of life remained a key and constant priority.
First of all, this means that the minimum wage, the living wage and insurance pensions of non-working retired persons shall be indexed by ten percent from 1 June. The relevant resolution has been signed.
We have allocated over 500 billion roubles of federal budget funding in order to support more than 50 million citizens.
From now on, non-working pensioners will be getting an average of 19,000-plus roubles monthly.
Minimum wage levels will top 15,200 roubles, and this will affect more than four million employees who will have their wages raised.
We have also increased the living wage, monthly benefits for children under three, and benefits for children aged three to 17 from low-income families as well as some other benefits.
The Government will continue to provide all essential assistance to those who need it.
As per the President’s instruction, the Government and regional authorities are implementing a large-scale programme to modernise the primary healthcare sector. Our task is to refurbish our hospitals and outpatient clinics, so that they have everything they need to carry out patient examinations and treatment. This nationwide effort concerns every city and community all over Russia, including the smallest towns.
For these purposes, we will set aside over one billion roubles for 23 Russian regions, and this will make it possible to buy over 2,000 units of medical equipment for our primary healthcare sector, including X-ray machines, ultrasonoscopes, electric cardiographs and other equipment, depending on regional demand.
We will also purchase vehicles for medical organisations. These vehicles are particularly important for residents in remote areas, making it possible for doctors and paramedics to visit them.
We will also finance the construction of over 20 new modular paramedic centres and outpatient clinics.
Part of the federal financing will help to overhaul two outpatient clinics, in the Ryazan and Tambov regions, as well as build a children’s outpatient clinic in Irkutsk.
All of this is in demand by the people. Together with the Russian regions, we will continue to address the challenges our healthcare system is facing in order to increase the quality and accessibility of medical care across the country.
Now to the measures to improve the environmental situation in the regions. The Government has allocated almost 9 billion roubles to implement measures under the Clean Air federal project this year. The President has said many times that it is necessary to control these issues and keep them in focus. Financing will be allocated to ten Russian regions.
Among other things, these allocations will be used to renovate boiler houses and to convert private households from coal or stove heating to gas, electric or combined heating. Other measures are envisaged in the federal project plans.
This approach to addressing environmental problems can help improve life in the regions and create safer and more comfortable conditions for people’s health.
In addition, under the President’s instructions, the Government continues to provide additional support for our scientists working on breeding and seed growing. Such innovations are essential for successful import substitution in agriculture and for increasing the level of food security.
At our meeting last week, we decided to establish a poultry breeding centre in the Moscow Region.
Another Government directive aimed at creating conditions for the development of seed growing has also been signed.
A research and production centre will be created. Its specialists will be engaged in fundamental and applied research to develop new species, varieties and hybrids of agricultural crops. The association will include five well-known scientific agencies from different regions, such as the Kurchatov Institute from Moscow, the Pervomaiskaya Sugar Beet Selection and Experimental Station from the Krasnodar Territory, the North Caucasus and Rostov federal research centres, and the Crimean Institute of Viticulture and Winemaking. Each of them has its own school, competent specialists, and original developments. Therefore, there is no need to unite them in a single institution.
Working as part of the centre will help them to successfully cooperate and speed up the process of creating competitive breeding forms due to concentration of their efforts, as well as new technologies to produce and process agricultural products. The Kurchatov Institute will be the head agency.
We hope that the new centre will present its work programme as soon as possible and attract representatives of our agriculture sector to this process. Such cooperation will lay the foundation for creating better new lines of plants with high yields.
