Agenda: extending SPIC in the auto industry, improving the rules for including products in the domestic software registry and developing tourism.
Government meeting
Mikhail Mishustin’s opening remarks:
Friends!
Before turning to the agenda of our Government meeting, I would like to wish a very happy birthday to Tatyana Golikova. Ms Golikova, we all know you as a very responsible, professional, and most importantly, caring person.
You are supervising very complicated areas – the entire social bloc and healthcare issues. The health and life of our people depend on this. I would like to wish you professional success. May everything be well with you. Happy birthday!
Tatyana Golikova: Thank you very much Mr Mishustin! Thank you, colleagues. It is my pleasure to be part of such a highly professional team under you leadership. You can rest assured that all of the goals set by our President and by you will be reached.
Mikhail Mishustin: Now let’s go to today’s agenda. The Government continues to support the development of industry in these conditions of external pressure.
Under the President’s instruction, we will allow automakers to extend the special investment contracts (SPICs) they signed with the state. The main goal remains the same – to reach the SPIC indicators, including those on localisation. In today’s conditions, the automakers will have to carry out a good deal of extra work, master critical technology, develop the production of spare parts, find suppliers in Russia and involve new partners from among friendly countries.
It is very important to continue the general trend towards the expansion of our domestic potential in this industry and the creation of new jobs.
Following the President’s instructions, we continue to work for independence from foreign solutions. Today, we will review a draft law to support IT.
Our country has a special registry of domestic software. Software from this registry are to be purchased first and are exempt from VAT so the companies will not pay 20 percent from their sales. In this way, they receive additional resources they can channel into developing their businesses.
There is a proposal to improve the rules for adding new companies to the list. Draft amendments to the legislation would make it possible to include in it the products of our companies whose stock is traded on Russian stock exchanges, as well as the developments of government bodies and state corporations that are exclusively designed for domestic use.
Information on domestic software and hardware complexes will be introduced in the registry. The organisations that are selling, creating, introducing or servicing them will receive the right to a number of benefits, including some very important ones like zero profit tax and a reduction in employee insurance premiums.
This decision will allow us to increase the number of software products in the registry and protect our domestic IT market and our software experts.
Our agenda includes a package of issues on developing the tourist industry. We discussed this recently at a meeting with the President in late January.
One of the goals is to enhance the appeal of small places with a good, rich and interesting history. By the way, the day before yesterday, on the eve of Science Day, we visited INION (the Institute of Scientific Information on Social Sciences). We agreed that a lot of interesting historical facts and finds suggested by archaeologists could be included in a navigator for companies that are developing tourism in one way or another. With this in mind, the regions are drafting programmes on creating tourist sites in city centres. The Government will grant over 6 billion roubles to 24 regions for these programmes this year. These funds will help create uniform architectural and cultural sites at popular tourist attractions. Importantly, they will make it possible to coordinate different sights, arrange landscaping and introduce well-planned and convenient navigation for tourists in a familiar style.
All this is important for attracting travelers and residents of these places and creating a comfortable environment for them. Local people are always proud of the highlights, historical places and the interesting facts of their area.
The Government has also allocated over 5 billion roubles to the regions for supporting tourist businesses with grants. Of this sum, over 3 billion will be spent on implementing public initiatives, including the creation of national routes and recreation zones.
Camping and campsites have been gaining popularity recently. We will allocate 700 million roubles for projects on building these. We will assign another 1.5 billion roubles for companies that are upgrading travel infrastructure. These funds will be mostly spent on purchasing tourist equipment, building year-round swimming pools, developing new travel guides and creating a barrier-free environment.
State investment will make it possible to implement the ideas needed for the development of the entire industry and that are designed to make domestic travel more convenient and interesting. The Government will continue helping the regions organise events that attract travelers. We will allocate over 630 million roubles for these purposes for 36 regions. This will allow them to conduct many events that travelers will appreciate.
It is necessary to publish as much information as possible on these events. This will allow people to select the most comfortable travel options and, most importantly, will make domestic tourism more popular. We need to encourage demand not only in the summer or during school holidays but also in the off-season.
We hope these decisions will help us continue developing the tourist industry at a high rate while creating new jobs in the regions.
