Agenda: completing documentation for investment projects to upgrade the fleet of air and water transport, increasing subsidies for small agribusiness, and expanding the tourism programme for schoolchildren.
Excerpts from the transcript:
Government meeting
Mikhail Mishustin: Good afternoon, colleagues.
Following the President’s instruction, the Government has completed work on developing passports for investment projects to upgrade the fleet of air and water transport. All the relevant contracts with aviation industry enterprises have already been concluded.
We will produce more next-generation domestic equipment and reduce dependence on foreign models, thus strengthening technological sovereignty in general, which the President underscores as necessary.
The Government has identified an additional list of self-sustaining projects.
We will allocate over 237 billion roubles this year and more than 32 billion roubles
in the next two years to implement aircraft construction projects. The funds
will be provided on a repayable basis by acquiring bonds of Russian leasing
companies.
Due to these decisions, the Aeroflot Group will procure more than 60 long-haul aircraft on preferential terms in the next three years, including the flagship MS-21 airliners, updated Superjets and Tu-214s.
About 100 Mi-8 family helicopters will also be delivered to airlines flying to various Russian regions, about a third of them, by the end of this year.
Aurora, the united Far Eastern airline, will add almost 40 domestic planes to its fleet over the course of three years, not just Superjets, but also Baikal light multi-purpose turboprop aircraft, and Mi-171 helicopters; the first equipment will be supplied next year.
This will help include a larger number of cities and towns as flight destinations, increase the regularity and volume of traffic, and provide regions in Siberia, the Far East, the Russian Arctic and other remote and hard-to-reach areas with more reliable connectivity. This is also important for the development of local tourism, and the availability of airlift emergency services.
An additional 136 billion roubles will be allocated for the launch of major sea and river transport projects within the next five years under the same conditions. As a result, domestic shipping companies will receive more than 250 vessels for various purposes on lease in the next six years. This will significantly rejuvenate our fleet, increase the volume of maritime shipping, including the routes used for the export of Russian goods, and make travel more comfortable and affordable.
Another document concerns support for small agribusinesses. Agriculture is growing in Russia, achieving good harvests and ensuring the country’s food security. Due to external constraints, farms are struggling with rising costs. Businesses with minimal sales – agricultural consumer cooperatives, self-employed farmers, and owners of household plots are having it the hardest.
To support this category of agribusiness, the Government passed a resolution to clarify the conditions for providing a number of subsidies under the State Programme for the Development of Agriculture.
The maximum amount of an Agro-startup grant will increase to 7 million roubles for entrepreneurs who independently implement projects in dairy and beef cattle breeding, and to 8 million for members of agricultural consumer cooperatives who are engaged in the same activity.
Farmers who do other work, in particular, grow fruit and vegetables, will be entitled to up to 5 million roubles. The amount of state support for agricultural consumer cooperatives in this area will increase to 6 million.
We are also doubling the amount of subsidies for them to reimburse the costs of purchasing agricultural produce from owners of household plots from 10 million to 20 million roubles.
We hope these measures will help interested Russians start a business, and subsequently arrange the sale and processing of their products. New jobs will appear in rural areas, and consumers will enjoy a wider choice of high-quality and affordable domestic food products.
Please note, larger grants should not lead to a reduction in the number of recipients. I ask the Ministry of Agriculture to keep this issue under review, tracking the support for small and medium-sized agribusiness in the Russian regions.
One more point. The Government continues to create the necessary conditions to ensure that children have the opportunity to engage in interesting and meaningful activities during their free time.
We will expand the tourism programme for them, which includes short sightseeing trips for schoolchildren around their home region or neighbouring regions helping them get to know their history, traditions, and cultural distinctions. Moreover, children and their parents will be offered a choice of places that they would like to visit.
Today we will allocate 1 billion roubles for this measure. The funds will be used to compensate the costs of 29 Russian regions that have specially designed such trips for children.
This programme was launched last year as a pilot programme and has become very popular. It included 18 regions, and another 11 have recently joined. The funding has been doubled to ensure that at least 200,000 children can make short exciting trips around the country, enrich their knowledge, and broaden their horizons.
