Mikhail Mishustin: “Small and medium-sized businesses are becoming economic growth drivers in the regions. They create jobs, goods, services and modern solutions. It is important to provide SMEs with a broad range of assistance tools.”
Mikhail Mishustin’s opening remarks:
Mikhail Mishustin held a strategic session on national projects Effective and Competitive Economy, Tourism and Hospitality and Data Economy and Digital Transformation of the State
Good afternoon, colleagues.
In the May Executive Order on updated development goals, the President instructed to ensure that Russia’s GDP grow faster than the global average. This growth must occur along with the rise in our citizens’ wealth, businesses’ revenues and private investment. It is also very important to improve the business climate. We must expedite implementation of the modern governance system powered by Big Data.
Today we will discuss building three new national projects that will facilitate achieving these goals.
First, we will discuss Effective and Competitive Economy. This national project will comprise federal projects aimed at stimulating entrepreneurship, increasing labour productivity, steady employment and investment activity. It will also cover the climate agenda and a whole range of other important aspects such as the development of statistics. These measures will help us take more calibrated and, therefore, more effective decisions for strengthening the economy.
By the end of the decade, we have to engage 40 percent of medium-sized and large companies involved in the essential non-commodity industries, as well as all public and municipal social organisations, in the projects aimed to increase labour productivity – something that lies at the core of an effectively functioning economy.
We will devote special attention to SMEs. According to the President’s instructions, it is necessary to ensure that in the next six years, income per employee grow 20 percent faster than GDP.
We must continue building industrial, techno and business parks and create at least 100 of them in the country by 2030. These facilities have the infrastructure for quickly launching and developing production, and for releasing products into the market, which saves time and resources for small companies that can instead focus on implementing most advanced and innovative ideas sought by the market.
Small and medium-sized businesses are becoming economic growth drivers in the regions. They create jobs, goods, services and modern solutions. It is important to provide SMEs with a broad range of assistance tools.
The tourist industry is opening new development prospects for Russian regions. As we noted many times before, this industry creates a multiplier effect for employment and production in associated sectors. The President set a goal of increasing the share of the tourist industry in the GDP to 5 percent within six years, and tourist service exports by 200 percent. The number of trips across the country must grow to 140 million per year.
Mikhail Mishustin held a strategic session on national projects Effective and Competitive Economy, Tourism and Hospitality and Data Economy and Digital Transformation of the State
We must consider these goals when developing another new national project, Tourism and Hospitality, that will replace the current project next year.
It is important to make Russian trips even more appealing and comfortable, for both Russians and foreign travellers. They should have the opportunity to learn about Russia, its history and unique nature. They should be able to enjoy affordable quality service.
The Government, regional officials and businesses are working to improve the tourist infrastructure. We allocate substantial funds, including for the programme of concessional loans to build large three to five star hotels, amusement parks and ski resorts.
We are helping the regions build modular hotels. There are many camping and glamping accommodation sites, which are becoming increasingly popular with our people.
As per the President’s initiative, we will start implementing a major project to build all-season resorts in nine regions this year. They will become points of attraction for holidaymakers on the seaside and on Lake Baikal.
Out industry also has other objectives, like launching new travel routes and destinations, promoting Russia’s tourist potential abroad and increasing the manufacturing of Russian-made products for the tourism industry. Our head of state spoke about this at a meeting on the creation of federal all-season resorts, and this must be taken into account in our new national project.
The President also pointed out the importance of creating a state digital platform for this sector, which would comprise comprehensive information about logistics, accommodation sites, landmarks and tour guide services, which will help people plan their trips and businesses expand their operations and enhance efficiency.
Such modern platform solutions and services should also be actively implemented in other key sectors, namely the social sphere and state governance. It is one of the goals of the new national project, Data Economy and Digital Transformation of the State. We will talk about this in detail today.
In accordance with this project, investment in domestic IT solutions must exceed GDP growth by a factor of two, as per the President’s instructions.
We must stipulate support for the companies and start-ups that produce equipment and software. We must increase people’s access to modern high-quality telecommunication services and high-speed internet, as well as improve infrastructure throughout the country, including based on satellite and mobile communication.
We will continue to improve the system of socially significant state and municipal services, which must be provided proactively in the electronic form, and the procedures must be simple and understandable to people and take little time. I would like to emphasise in this connection that we must rely on public opinion and create feedback mechanisms to take it into account, while preserving an opportunity for the people to personally bring their problems to government agencies, which is a preferable option for some groups.
This new national project has been discussed at various platforms, including at our strategic sessions and at conferences, like the Digitalisation of Industrial Russia (CIPR) conference in Nizhny Novgorod. It is important to take regional requirements into account when preparing such events, for example, increasing the accessibility of mobile internet on federal routes and railway lines. It is also essential to organise the training of high school and college students in modern computer programming languages. It has also been proposed to further develop educational electronic content and services, as well as to create standard solutions for regional and local governments. Of course, all this should be carefully analysed, systematised and incorporated in the new project.
It should also include measures aimed at protecting personal data and creating an effective system for the prevention of IT crimes, which are currently a major concern for the people.
