Mikhail Mishutin chaired the first meeting of the newly appointed Government.
Government meeting
Government meeting
Mikhail Mishutin’s opening remarks:
Good morning, colleagues.
Today the newly formed Government is holding its first meeting.
First, I would like to offer my heartfelt congratulations on your appointments. At the same time, this is also an immense responsibility. We must work diligently and effectively to live up to the trust placed in us by the President, as well as the people of Russia.
The President has stressed the need for us to unite and be prompt, responsive and relentless in our efforts, considering the challenging environment we face today.
Colleagues, I ask you to prioritise achieving the updated national development goals until 2030, as well as the longer-term vision reaching as far as 2036. We must also make sure that we fulfil all the provisions from the President’s Address to the Federal Assembly. These priorities must guide our actions, and I ask you to closely monitor all these undertakings.
I would also like to thank the Federation Council and the State Duma, as well as Valentina Matviyenko and Vyacheslav Volodin personally for the work they have done to fulfil their Constitutional mandate.
Government members received their appointments after public debates which received extensive media coverage. Many urgent and topical issues were raised during committee meetings and plenary sessions. Each of you heard recommendations and requests, and received valuable feedback from the people represented by the parliamentarians. Yesterday, the President asked you to take all the proposals you heard at the State Duma on board and to focus on them. We will ensure that this is done.
I ask my deputies and the ministers within the Government’s purview to carefully review these proposals. Vyacheslav Volodin made it clear that the parliament has assumed its constitutional responsibility for approving your nominations.
It is essential that we remain proactive when working with the members of parliament moving forward and be as open as possible to them when drafting new laws and regulations.
There is one essential thing we must remember at all times: our objective is to fulfil the presidential instructions in full and on time. We must do everything in our power to improve the quality of life for people in every region. This includes defining funding sources to support families, individuals and businesses. We must do this without delay. This is what the President told us yesterday, by the way. He placed a special emphasis on this point.
I also want to extend my gratitude to former Government members who have moved on to other positions and wish them every success in their future endeavours. I am certain that they will be effective and relevant in their new roles.
I suggest that we now turn to the agenda for this Government meeting. We have a series of items dealing with helping the Russian regions, primarily those that suffered from spring floods. As you all know, these floods reached record levels this spring, resulting in emergencies in several regions, including the Orenburg and Kurgan regions. Many people lost their homes, property and assets.
The President has emphasised the importance of ensuring that those who suffered in these disasters have everything they need. We must respond to every request we receive.
As instructed by the President, we will allocate 4 billion roubles to the Kurgan Region as flood-relief funding. This money will primarily go towards paying out compensation to people there, including one-off payments for lost property, as well as funding for repairing damaged housing or purchasing new housing if the old home was destroyed.
In addition to this, we will provide funding for rebuilding healthcare, educational and social institutions damaged by the flooding.
Engineering infrastructure, hydrotechnical structures, and sanitation are all essential for ensuring the safety of people in the affected territories.
There is one more point I wanted to raise regarding the Orenburg Region. The Government immediately sent about 500 million roubles there to help flood victims.
We will now allocate an additional sum of 5 billion roubles, as per the Presidential instructions. This funding will help us restore the damaged utilities infrastructure.
Businesses, including SMEs, have also been affected by these disasters. It is essential that we support companies and help them retain their staff.
To do that, we will offer them a 12-month postponement on a series of taxes, advance payments and insurance contributions which became due on 1 April 2024.
The Government will draft a resolution to this effect soon.
These preferences will apply in the Orenburg Region to entities and organisations whose revenue declined by more than a third during the emergency.
We hope that this measure will ease the financial burden on businesses and enable them to use the available resources to restore their operations and address the issues they are facing.
