Agenda: indexing social payments, benefits and compensations from 1 February, additional support for certain categories of citizens during the implementation of the social gas infrastructure programme and zero VAT rates for shipbuilding plants.
Government meeting
Mikhail Mishustin’s opening remarks: Good afternoon, colleagues. In line with the President’s instruction, social payments, benefits and compensations shall increase by almost 12 percent from 1 February. The federal budget stipulates this indexation, an essential aspect of the social security system for citizens in need of additional support. The Government’s agenda always prioritises these issues. This decision covers 46 different measures. Recipients include people with disabilities, veterans and families with children. Maternity capital volumes will also increase. Families with one child shall receive 580,000 roubles, and those with two children or more will be eligible for over 775,000 roubles. Lump-sum payments for new-born babies will also go up.We will index payments for people in all three disability categories, Great Patriotic War veterans and veterans of other combat operations. We also provide support for other categories of citizens.Colleagues, we need to organise this work in such a way so that people receive the benefits they are entitled to on time and in full.Let us now discuss the agenda. We continue to implement the social gas infrastructure programme, launched over a year ago on the initiative of the President. We have received about a million applications from homeowners for the free extension of gas pipelines to land plots.Our work has already provided hundreds of thousands of families with gas. However, not everyone could afford this due to high equipment costs and gas network connection fees.In line with the President’s instruction, we will provide additional support to certain categories of Russian citizens, primarily Great Patriotic War veterans and veterans of other combat operations, families with low incomes and those with many children.Subsidies will total at least 100,000 roubles. At the same time, the Government will partially reimburse regions with low budget revenues for these expenses. For this purpose, we will allocate about 2.5 billion roubles in 2023, and 54 Russian regions will receive this funding. I would like to tell regional leaders that people should know that they are entitled to such assistance; moreover, they should not face excessive red tape while obtaining these payments.Today, we will also review a bill for supporting investment projects in the national economy, including those implemented under a strategy for developing the shipbuilding industry.The President ordered us to increase the share of ship repair, equipment, retrofitting and refitting operations at national enterprises to the greatest possible extent. To fulfil this instruction, the Government has drafted Tax Code amendments stipulating zero VAT rates for shipbuilding plants. This privilege will apply to enterprises that repair vessels in docks and on slipways, provided that they spend at least 20 percent of their profits on corporate development plans over a period of seven years. An agreement with the state shall formalise this obligation.
Consequently, businesses
will be able to expand their investment capabilities by saving money and to
invest more in long-term projects. They will be able to purchase advanced and
expensive equipment for servicing modern high-tech vessels and maritime
technology.
