Mikhail Mishustin’s opening remarks
Good afternoon, colleagues,
Today we will summarise the harvesting campaign that is about to end in basically all regions.
As the President noted, agriculture is one of the key sectors of the Russian economy that not only provides food to the domestic market but also contributes to overcoming global food shortages.
The agriculture industry has shown excellent results this year, with a record crop harvest. About 150 million tonnes of grain has been milled to date. There is a good year-on-year increase in the potato harvest, greenhouse vegetables, fruit, soy and rape.
These results form a solid basis for boosting agricultural production, increasing Russia’s food security and, of course, ensuring the harvests next year.
Fodder conservation and winter crop sewing are underway in a number of regions. For successful completion of the autumn field work, farmers must have everything they need, including seed, fertiliser, fuel and lubricants, as well as access to concessional 5 percent loans.
As instructed by the President, we allocated funding for these purposes last spring. It is also important to help agriculture businesses with Russian-made machinery and equipment upgrades, and to make sure agricultural producers receive government funding in a timely manner. We have allocated 380 billion roubles under the state agriculture development programme this year.
We expect that this comprehensive approach will ensure that our citizens have access to quality and affordable food while the Russian agriculture industry continues its intensive growth.
Minister of Agriculture Dmitry Patrushev will report on the harvesting campaign in more detail.
The next matter we will discuss is environmental safety.
The President issued instructions to detoxify and eliminate all accumulated waste, and to clean up the contaminated areas in Usolye-Sibirskoye in the Irkutsk Region.
The Government is allocating substantial funding for these purposes. As of today, a series of immediate measures have been taken to eliminate the direct threat of an environmental disaster and to alleviate the state of emergency.
The next stage is continuing the de-contamination of the territory, removing the substances that accumulated at Usolyekhimprom, the city’s former backbone facility, which covers an area of more than 600 hectares.
We will allocate more than 4 billion roubles to demolish the plant’s structures and containers with accumulated waste.
It is important to manage the environmental risks and use the developed territory for the construction of an environmental techno park. This project would create more employment opportunities for local residents.
There is one more important topic.
The current circumstances have created great challenges for the travel businesses in the Republic of Crimea and Sevastopol. Entrepreneurs need government support to keep on with their businesses and to retain jobs.
We will allocate over 1.6 billion roubles to these regions, to be spent as one-time subsidies for 1,500 businesses in the travel industry, upon condition that in the next six months, October 2022 through March 2023, they keep at least 80 percent of their employees.
This financial aid was calculated based on the performance of the tourism sector in these regions and doubling the minimal wage as of this year.
We are particularly monitoring the situation in Crimea and will continue to provide the necessary help to local residents and businesses.
