Excerpts from the transcript:
Meeting with deputy prime ministers on current issues
Meeting with deputy prime ministers on current issues
Marat Khusnullin at a meeting with deputy prime ministers on current issues
Meeting with deputy prime ministers on current issues
Mikhail Mishustin: Good afternoon, colleagues.
On Friday, the President chaired a meeting of the State Council, where the outcomes of the Year of the Family, declared by the President, were reviewed. The discussion focused on further measures to support parents with children.
The President issued several key instructions aimed at improving the quality of life for families, with particular emphasis on large families. This includes extending all social guarantees, benefits, and payments available to the Heroes of Labor of Russia to mothers who are recognised as heroines.
Additionally, it was proposed to increase maternity benefits for expectant mothers who are full-time students at universities, colleges, and vocational schools, bringing them up to the level of the subsistence minimum.
There was also discussion about preparing amendments to the legislation to ensure that the time spent caring for each child until the age of one and a half is counted as part of the work experience when calculating pensions for parents. Currently, only up to four such periods, amounting to a maximum of six years of maternity leave, are considered in the calculation of work experience.
Another initiative put forward by the President focuses on low income families. It is essential to make the social contract more accessible to them, without factoring in the single benefit when providing it. This approach will enable even more citizens to overcome financial hardships with state assistance.
The discussion also addressed the importance of preserving and improving the health of both adults and children.
Ms Golikova (addressing Tatyana Golikova), it is crucial that all these matters are closely monitored under your personal supervision.
We will also continue to support parents raising children and help them resolve housing issues. The President has noted that low-interest 6 percent mortgages should be retained. We need to expand their scale and enable people to purchase housing on the existing home market using such loans. This primarily concerns areas where there is practically no housing development.
Mr Khusnullin (addressing Marat Khusnullin), it is necessary to analyse this issue and to outline clear criteria for these communities. We should also resolve the issue of this programme’s maximum funding quotas, as the President has instructed during the Direct Line. I am asking you to address this issue together with Mr Anton Siluanov.
People should not face such restrictions that were partially lifted in December. From now on, banks can issue extra soft loans worth 2.5 trillion roubles. We have also renounced the initial rigid redistribution of assets between loan agencies. However, the President emphasised the need to eliminate funding quotas.
Mr Khusnullin, this should be done quickly.
Addressing the State Council meeting, the President also noted the proactive position of the business community in supporting families and suggested extra benefits for companies that provide their employees with corporate maternal capital for their babies. This sum (on which no tax is levied) should increase from 50,000 to 1 million roubles.
Here is one more thing. The President has declared 2025 the Year of the Defender of the Fatherland, to honour the heroes of and participants in the special military operation and all those who fought for our Motherland during different time periods. We need to organise this project in the best way possible.
Colleagues,
Although the Year of the Family has ended, we will continue to help people raising children. As the President has noted, the issue of supporting and protecting the family, its value, prestige and status certainly has an intransient significance.
The creation of worthy nationwide conditions for giving birth and raising children and ensuring their growth and development has been and remains a high-priority aspect of the Government’s activities.
Last week, the President held his annual direct line conference where he reviewed the preliminary results of the outgoing year. Our economy is growing more dynamically than that of the main initiators of the anti-Russia sanctions.
The President gave detailed answers to questions from the media as well as regular Russians, and offered assessments of the Government policies to strengthen the country’s sovereignty, including technological and security sovereignty, as well as measures to support families with many children and our defenders participating in the special military operation.
The support measures should encompass everyone who is carrying out combat missions in Russia’s border areas today – in particular, in the Kursk Region. The President emphasised the need to make them entitled to the same benefits as those paid to the soldiers fighting at the frontlines of the special military operation. The relevant documents have been prepared and signed.
We need to continue to keep these and other key matters the President mentioned under special review. We also need to study the details to ensure that the decisions we make take into account local realities.
It is also important to step up efforts to develop industry, to produce more goods and services at domestic facilities, primarily in advanced and science-intensive industries, which should not only be reflected in reports, but actually pave the way for further sustainable development and contribute to achieving our national goals. It goes without saying that our efforts should be aimed at containing the fluctuations of consumer goods’ prices. In this regard, we will hold a separate meeting today to review the most recent inflation developments.
The President also gave a number of specific instructions. They primarily concern incidents of airfare manipulation by carriers. This issue was also discussed at the State Council. The law requires airlines to give a 50 percent discount to children under 12.
Families with children should be able to take advantage of this discount. The Ministry of Transport has already started working on this. We need to expedite this work and complete it before January 14, which is the deadline set by the President.
I will ask Vitaly Savelyev and the Minister of Transport to keep this problem under your supervision.
Colleagues,
All the presidential instructions issued during the Direct Line and the State Council meeting must be worked out carefully and promptly. I would like to ask you to monitor this in the areas you supervise.
Today, we will have an in-depth discussion of the road complex, an economic sector whose activities strongly impact the development and investment activities in many industries, above all tourism, construction, and trade. Moreover, the safety of people depends directly on the quality of motorways and respective infrastructure.
Yesterday, the President participated in the launch of several critical facilities, including two bypasses of cities as part of the extension of the M-12 Vostok motorway to Yekaterinburg, a part of the Russia route.
Today, traffic was launched on five new sections of our largest mainlines: bypasses of Volgograd and Kansk, an extension of the section near Gudermes, a bridge over the Sura River, and the Scandinavia road. Three of them are part of the North - South transport corridor.
All of them are well-maintained and have modern service and rest areas and stable communications, which is crucial for comfortable travel for our people and a stable, reliable traffic of goods. The President always pays special attention to this.
Construction and maintenance of federal, regional and local motorways is ongoing. The government has decided to allocate over 46 billion roubles for these purposes.
The five-year plan of road activities has also been expanded. Now it includes the construction and renovation of several new infrastructure facilities: a bypass of Mariupol, a bridge across the Tumannaya River and the state border with the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, as well as repairs of road sections in the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics.
Mr Khusnullin, this sector, which is important for the country, has demonstrated high results this year, as per tradition. Please tell us more about the preliminary results as well as upcoming projects.
More to be posted soon.
