The agenda: the Government’s efforts to implement presidential tasks in 2023, to finance the family mortgages programme, to reduce the tax burden on industrial cluster participants, to create a joint online state database for using archive materials and to modernise rural post offices.
Mikhail Mishustin’s opening remarks:
Good afternoon, colleagues,
Mikhail Mishustin’s opening remarks
Yesterday, the President chaired a meeting of the Council for Strategic Development and National Projects and set forth a number of priority state policy tasks for 2023. He voiced new initiatives that have major significance for the country’s future. For example, they will make it possible to respond to challenges now confronting the national economy and our citizens.
We prioritise efforts to strengthen interaction with our key allies and to search for new promising partners, primarily in actively growing regions of the global economy.
For this purpose, it is necessary to expand reliable and modern transport and logistic corridors. High-capacity Eurasian routes should link the state’s western and eastern borders, and they should also link the Russian market with that of our key partners. In this connection, we will devote special attention to the North-South and West-East routes, including the construction of the Moscow-Kazan-Yekaterinburg motorway and its subsequent extension, as well as the modernisation of the eastern railway sections, the Trans-Siberian and Baikal-Amur mainlines. We need all this to expand passenger and freight flows, to boost business activity and social mobility.
Efforts to strengthen our technological sovereignty are another task for 2023. The Government is working to accomplish it and to boost competitiveness in key areas, including artificial intelligence, data computation and transmission, as well as new industrial technologies.
As instructed by the President, we will update our plans for developing the main economic sectors more quickly. It is also necessary to adjust them with regard to the defence industry and overall state defence contract parameters, and to launch additional programmes in the field of robotics and unmanned aerial vehicles/drones.
The President has noted that easy-term plans for leasing Russian-made aircraft and ships should be implemented in full volume, and that aircraft lease funding should be allocated before the year is out.
We need to develop the processing industry faster than planned; we have to quickly expand its capacities and to create new production lines.
The President suggested expanding the industrial mortgage programme to cover the purchase of facilities, as well as their construction and modernisation.
Mr Manturov (addressing Denis Manturov) and Mr Siluanov (addressing Anton Siluanov), please submit the relevant proposals for financing the 2023 industrial mortgage plans in the near future, with due account for the additional need to expand these plans.
It is important to continue developing the infrastructure. Several regions are ready to open facilities ahead of schedule. For them, we will develop a mechanism for advanced financing under the President’s instructions so these Russian regions can receive the funding planned for next few years, and, accordingly, complete the work faster.
Moreover, at the President’s initiative, it is necessary to increase infrastructure budget loans. An additional 250 billion should be directed towards transport, and utilities and social infrastructure via open competitions, as well as through programmes to upgrade housing and utilities. Of this amount, 100 billion should go to projects in cities in the Far East.
This competition must be held at the beginning of the year. Mr Khusnullin (addressing Marat Khusnullin), I would like to ask you to start on this right now.
One more thing: in line with the President’s instructions, we and the regions will allocate funds from infrastructure budget loans for the construction and repair of housing and utilities, as a matter of priority.
I am asking you to draft documents on expanding the infrastructure bond programme with the expectation that the volume of projects being implemented will be doubled, up to 300 billion roubles.
Soon it will be necessary to ensure the implementation of the President’s initiative to extend preferential mortgages across Russia until 1 July 2024 at a rate of up to 8 percent per annum. Also, under the President’s instructions, we will expand access to family mortgages at 6 percent for families with at least two children under the age of 18. Our newly joined territories will be provided with preferential loans for the purchase of housing in new buildings at a 2 percent interest rate.
I am asking the Ministry of Finance to submit the regulatory documents to the Government by 20 December so that our mortgage programmes can be offered under these terms starting next year.
The President focused on support for families. He has instructed us to develop proposals for improving this effort with consideration for individual life situations, and this should be completed soon.
Also, as we begin the consolidated payment benefit for families with children and expectant mothers in need, we will increase the payment amounts for pregnant women to half the subsistence minimum, as the President instructed.
They also discussed the healthcare sector, including the shortage of medical personnel, strengthening primary care, and combating socially significant diseases like hepatitis C and diabetes.
Ms Golikova (addressing Tatyana Golikova), I would like to ask you to promptly prepare proposals on implementing the President's initiatives.
One more thing. The President has instructed us to expand the capabilities of the Krug Dobra Foundation so it can provide assistance to a larger number of people: now until they turn 19 years old.
The relevant Government resolution has been signed.
Colleagues,
The topics that the President outlined in yesterday’s speech are important for every person in Russia. All the raised proposals address specific problems. And of course, it is important to do everything necessary to implement them. The development of our country and the well-being of our people depend on this.
Now let’s get down to the agenda.
In continuation of the Presidential initiatives, we will consider another issue of assisting large families.
Currently, parents in this category can use one of the preferential lending programmes: family, Far Eastern or preferential mortgages, to improve their living conditions. Under the President’s instructions, they can also receive a lump sum payment in the amount of 450,000 roubles. It can be used to partially or fully repay the loan.
This support measure has been in force for more than three years and has proven to be very popular, so it was extended to include families with children born before the end of next year. The loan agreement can be concluded until 1 July 2024.
Today we will allocate an additional 8.5 billion roubles for these purposes. This will make it possible for several thousand more large families to significantly reduce their debt, and hence the cost of buying a home.
Also yesterday, during a meeting of the Council for Strategic Development and National Projects, the president once again recalled the need to reduce the fiscal and administrative burden for companies in industrial clusters.
Fulfilling the task set by the President, we will create more convenient conditions for them starting 1 January 2023. We will adjust the tax rules.
Amendments have been prepared to allow businesses in these zones to pay insurance deductions at a reduced rate – just over 7.5 percent – when complying with a number of requirements.
Businesses will be able to use this plan when signing a special investment contract with the Russian Federation. There are currently over 40 contracts like this. A single reduced rate will be in effect until the end of the contract, but no more than seven years.
A number of other conditions are part of this, including tax monitoring with companies and institutions in industrial clusters that have concluded the special investment contracts at the federal level. And a number of other innovations, the implementation of which will provide bona fide businesses with the opportunity to effectively use this preferential programme.
The adoption of the draft bill will help reduce the tax burden on businesses operating in industrial clusters, allow them to increase the volume of products manufactured in Russia, and new jobs for our people will appear in the regions.
Mr Manturov, this document should be submitted to the State Duma as soon as possible.
The next issue is about expanding the opportunity for people to see information stored in state archives, including information of historical value.
The President emphasised that the history of Russia must be considered as a whole, including the sometimes extremely difficult and even contradictory periods.
Interest in primary sources is constantly growing. Over the past few years, the number of visits to archive reading rooms has increased by one and a half times.
In order to facilitate access to such information, the Government has developed a draft bill on the creation of a unified state information system for the remote use of archival materials. With this, it will be possible not only to search, but also to view and copy them. We hope that as a result, Russians will be able to study valuable historical documents literally without leaving their homes.
And one more thing, regarding support for rural areas, as well as villages in remote areas.
It is important that people living in these areas can receive Russian Post services on time and in full. This is not just the delivery of correspondence and parcels, but also pensions and other social benefits, not to mention the opportunity to use the internet, send documents and requests to public services centres or pay utility bills, or order over-the-counter medicines, and a number of other services that people need.
As the President noted, the post is a backbone industry and must always be operational, and the services people need must be provided quickly and as conveniently as possible.
This year a new programme for the renovation of post offices in rural areas has been launched. About 1,200 of them will be updated by the end of the year.
This work will continue.
In line with the President’s instructions, we will allocate 5 billion roubles for these purposes from the federal budget next year. This means that in almost a thousand more post offices located in remote areas, it will be possible to expand the list of services for people and put these offices in order.
