Agenda: Renewing the maternity capital benefit programme, supporting medical workers in rural areas, expanding support measures for companies purchasing Russian high-technology equipment.
Mikhail Mishustin’s opening remarks:
Government meeting
Good afternoon, colleagues.
The agenda for this Government meeting includes matters relating to families with children.
In keeping with the President’s initiative, the programme for paying out maternity capital benefits will be extended through 2030. For this to happen, today we will discuss necessary amendments to the respective laws.
This state support measure has proven its worth and has been quite popular, too. Over 14 million certificates for these benefits have been issued since the start of this programme. Parents can use these funds to move into better housing, pay for the child’s education, or invest them in the mother’s pension savings account. In some cases, fathers also enjoy this privilege. There are also other ways in which beneficiaries can use these funds. People can even get cash up to 10,000 roubles left from the allocated amount.
Almost five million families will benefit from the decision to renew the programme until 2030.
Just as before, we will adjust the maternity capital benefit for inflation. It will exceed 676,000 roubles already in February for the first child, while those giving birth to their second and subsequent children will get over 893,000 roubles.
Government meeting
We will also continue supporting people with children. This is what the Family National Project is all about. We are preparing to launch it on 1 January 2025 as per the Presidential instructions.
I also wanted to mention the decision to improve healthcare services for people living in rural areas. The Government continues allocating funds for this purpose, including through the Rural Doctor and the Rural Paramedic programmes. Established over 10 years ago, this mechanism has already enabled over 65,000 healthcare workers to receive one-off compensation. This includes doctors, paramedics, birth attendants and nurses who agree to move to rural areas, small towns and villages.
Both programmes will be extended until 2030 at the initiative of the President.
When allocating this funding, we have been taking into account that the situation may vary from one region to another. As baseline, doctors can get 1 million roubles in compensation, mid-level health professionals get 500,000 roubles. As for those relocating to hard-to-access and remote regions, they get 1.5 million and 750,000 roubles, respectively. For Russia’s Far East, Extreme North and the Arctic, these allocations can reach 2 million and 1 million roubles, respectively. Our new regions get the same treatment.
This way, we have been able to attract about 2,000 specialists in an effort to improve healthcare services. At the same time, some Russian regions have yet to meet demand for healthcare workers. This is what I have been hearing from their governors when talking to them. The Government will earmark almost 230 million roubles for this specific purpose in order to support them.
This way, another 13 regions will be able to attract medics as part of the Rural Doctor and Rural Paramedic programmes and offer healthcare jobs to hundreds of specialists.
It is essential that local authorities get these funds as quickly as possible in order to ensure that newly attracted workers receive their entitlements, while patients in rural areas and small towns get the healthcare and support they need in a timely manner.
Moving on to the next item on our agenda, the Government is about to offer more support to companies, primarily those making advanced equipment.
In his May executive order, the President set a goal to increase the share of Russian high-technology goods and services resulting from our own research and development efforts by a factor of 1.5 compared to 2023 by the end of this decade.
We have already adopted several decisions to this effect. I am referring to subsidised loans, lowering social security contributions, as well as the profit tax when buying Russian high-technology products.
To reduce the taxable base, we now provide for doubling these expenses instead of multiplying them by1.5 times.
This way, companies get to keep more resources when introducing cutting-edge domestically produced means of manufacturing which include all kinds of machines, turbines, drilling systems, geophysical devices, compressors, electric furnaces, excavators, boring machines, industrial robots, and additive manufacturing machines for 3D printing. Companies will be able to use these funds for buying raw materials, training specialists, and further expanding their operations, which is instrumental.
We will also extend the list of high-technology equipment by adding radio electronics.
These measures are designed to promote competition within the Russian economy in several sectors by providing for the manufacturing of a wider range of advanced products, while also enhancing the performance of companies which use these solutions.
It is essential that this decision further consolidates the foundation for achieving national technological sovereignty.
