Agenda: Plan of events as part of the Year of Teachers and Mentors; expansion of the More than a Journey youth programme; additional subsidies for the transport of agricultural produce by rail; supporting the aircraft industry.
Meeting with deputy prime ministers on current issues
Mikhail Mishustin’s opening remarks:
Good morning, colleagues,
The Government has approved a plan of events for the Year of Teachers and Mentors. At the President’s initiative, it is held to commemorate the 200th birth anniversary of Konstantin Ushinsky, one of the founding fathers of Russian pedagogical science.
In his Address to the Federal Assembly, the President emphasised that the Year was aimed at enhancing the public profile of teaching.
School and university teachers, instructors and coaches will be able to take part in meetings and forums, specialised contests, exhibitions, cultural and educational projects, and humanitarian missions timed to coincide with the Teacher’s Year. They will also hone their professional skills at academic competitions and scientific conferences, as well as share knowledge with those who want to follow suit.
We hope that these measures will help encourage the best teachers and disseminate their best practices, improve the quality of school curricula, draw young people to educational establishments, and, what is most important, boost the profession’s prestige.
Now let me say a few more words about supporting young people.
President Putin has stressed the need to create conditions where young people will be able to make the most of their potential, show their worth, or find an occupation that will help them assert themselves in life.
With this aim in view, the Government will expand the More than a Journey programme so that over 60,000 children will be able to participate in it each year.
Over the next three years, we will allocate more than 7 billion roubles for its implementations.
This money will pay for tourist travel certificates to be granted to winners of contests and academic competitions, forming part of any of the projects in the framework of the Russia – Land of Opportunity presidential platform.
Beneficiaries will be able to travel along unique routes and take part in educational programmes on the most topical issues, from entrepreneurship and urban development to information technologies and the environment. For example, it will be possible to go on an expedition to the Polar areas to assist professionals in studying processes in the Barents Sea.
We have many active young people, who show much interest in the history, culture and traditions of Russian regions, including in socially significant projects. These travels will help them to expand their worldview, get new skills, and possibly even find their new calling.
We continue to help farmers, as instructed by the President.
It is necessary to provide the regions with additional grain and oil-yielding crops, vegetables and fish products, as well as mineral fertiliser; it is common knowledge that not a single sowing campaign can do without such fertiliser.
We will allocate an additional two billion roubles from the budget in order to reduce agrarian producers’ transport expenditures.
The funding will mostly provide farmers with reduced railway rates. This will make it possible to deliver about one million tonnes of agricultural produce to various destinations. This year, the Government will spend over four billion roubles on supporting these shipments.
This will help reduce the outlays of agrarian businesses, provide the food and processing industry with agricultural raw materials on time, and create new food supply chains, so that people in all Russian regions would be able to receive high-quality foods all year round.
Ms Abramchenko, the sowing campaign will soon commence in the southern regions. Mr Patrushev, it is important that farmers have the essential resources for launching spring-time fieldwork. Please keep an eye on this issue.
I would now like to say a few words about an additional decision to support the aviation industry. The state sees it as a strategic sector on which deliveries of new aircraft to air carriers and the entire vast country’s connectivity now depend.
The President has set rigid deadlines for fulfilling tasks to expand production of the entire range of Russian-made airliners.
We have signed firm contracts with the industry, we have discussed this issue separately quite recently, and it is now necessary to modernise production facilities without delay. These facilities already mass-produce aircraft, their engines and the entire range of important instruments and units.
As instructed by the President, the Government will set aside five billion roubles for implementing this large-scale programme throughout 2023. From 2024, we will stipulate special budgetary allocations for this purpose. In the next 14 years, total support volumes may top 376 billion roubles.
This funding will make it possible to reimburse enterprises for up to 50 percent of their expenses on repaying bank loans, plus interest rates. They are borrowing these loans to accelerate the manufacture of aircraft and to create a warranty and post-warranty maintenance system.
Air carriers should not face any difficulties while operating Russian-made aircraft. It is important to stockpile components, to plan their detailed logistics and to improve technical maintenance and repair protocols. The Ministry of Industry and Trade should monitor this issue at all times.
