Agenda: improving the rules for granting social contracts, allocating additional funding for the programme to modernise regional utility networks, and reviewing progress on enhancing the resilience of the financial sector and specific economic sectors
Mikhail Mishustin’s opening remarks
Meeting with Deputy Prime Ministers on current issues
Meeting with Deputy Prime Ministers on current issues
Alexander Novak at a meeting with Deputy Prime Ministers on current issues
Meeting with Deputy Prime Ministers on current issues
Mikhail Mishustin: Good morning, colleagues,
As instructed by the President, the Government has improved the rules for granting social contracts. Now, when determining eligibility, payments under the unified benefit for childbirth and childrearing, received by low-income families, will not be taken into account. In other words, this amount will be excluded from the calculation of a family's per capita income when applying for such support. The necessary legislative changes have been approved by a corresponding Government resolution.
According to expert estimates, this adjustment will allow for an additional 118,000 social contracts to be issued annually. As a result, more people facing difficult life circumstances will be able to receive state support to retrain and find new jobs, start their own businesses, or develop personal subsidiary farms, thereby improving their financial situation.
The programme has proven to be both effective and in demand.
Over the next six years, no less than 100 billion roubles will be allocated to co-finance its implementation in the regions.
Additionally, according to a presidential executive order, priority access to this support must be ensured for large families, participants in the special military operation, and their family members. A government resolution formalising this priority has also been signed.
Ms Golikova, I would like to ask you to closely monitor the provision of state assistance in accordance with social contracts across the country.
Moving on to another topic. The President has emphasised the importance of accelerating the modernisation of utility networks in the regions and, in his May Executive Order, he set the goal of improving the quality of public utilities. To achieve this, the new Infrastructure for Life national project has already been launched. Alongside it, several Russian regions are implementing their own programmes for upgrading housing and utilities infrastructure and the energy sectors. These include the republics of Dagestan, Ingushetia and North Ossetia, where our pilot project for the sustainable development of resource organisations is underway. We discussed this in detail during our visit to the Stavropol Territory.
So far, the project has yielded positive results – payment discipline has improved and salaries for industry specialists have increased. Thanks to these efforts, the republics have seen improvements in water supply, sanitation and electrical networks.
To further support the programme, we will allocate nearly 4 billion roubles from the federal budget. These funds will help finance the work that is not yet fully covered by the current tariffs. This assistance will continue, as we expect it to improve people’s quality of life, make the North Caucasus more attractive for industrial investment, and, most importantly, lay the foundation for long-term economic growth.
Mr Novak, please keep these issues under your personal supervision, as you are responsible for overseeing the Caucasus regions.
One more thing. At the end of last year, the President instructed us to step up sectoral support measures similar to those implemented during the pandemic. Mr Novak, we have also talked about this in detail, and you are already working on it regularly. The subcommittee on enhancing the resilience of the financial sector and specific industries has held meetings in line with the regulations of the Government Commission.. A broad group of business and industry experts is involved in this process.
Several important decisions have already been made. The list of systemically important enterprises has been updated, and measures to support various industries have been developed.
Mr Novak, please share more details on the progress of this work.
Alexander Novak at a meeting with Deputy Prime Ministers on current issues
Alexander Novak: Mr Mishustin, as you have noted, the Government has resumed the work of the subcommittee on enhancing the resilience of the financial sector and specific industries.
To date, it has reviewed the current situation in a number of economic sectors, including coal mining, construction, metallurgy, the automotive industry, the forestry sector, agriculture, and transport and agricultural machine building industries.
In the near future, we will also analyse infrastructure construction, mineral fertiliser production and the fishing industry.
To assess the condition of systemically important enterprises, we have updated the monitoring system. This now covers 2,326 such organisations and includes 12 key indicators that track production dynamics, financial performance, and overall economic health.
As a result of the subcommittee's work, more than 40 concrete decisions have already been developed to support various industries. The primary focus has been on stimulating demand for products in the current economic environment.
Let me name some of them.
Housing construction: a decision has been made to increase the profitability of preferential mortgage programmes, including Family Mortgage and Far Eastern and Arctic Mortgage. A corresponding Government resolution was signed on February 7.
The coal industry: to ensure the sector’s stable operation, an agreement has been reached between Kemerovo Region and Russian Railways to transport coal at volumes no lower than 2024 levels. Additionally, measures are being implemented to reduce railway car turnover and increase the use of high-capacity innovative railcars, further improving transportation efficiency.
Commercial vehicle and bus manufacturing: to stimulate demand, we are adjusting the preferential leasing programme, increasing the discount to up to 40 percent of the vehicle cost. Furthermore, the Ministry of Industry and Trade will allocate an additional 4 billion roubles for the procurement of public transport.
With regard to railway rolling stock and the rolling-stock manufacturing industry: we will increase Russian Railways’ capital by 15 billion roubles to enable the purchase of engines and rolling stock.
As for the timber industry, we are creating additional demand in related consumer sectors, such as the construction industry and the housing and utilities sector. We are also continuing to implement the programme for converting boiler houses to pellet fuel.
We have analysed the situation in agriculture. There, we are fine-tuning the existing support measures to reorient them towards supporting low-margin products with inadequate self-sufficiency. As per your instructions, we are also looking into ways to enable the signing of long-term pricing-formula agreements with retail chains.
Generally, Mr Mishustin, colleagues, the current situation regarding the systemically important organisations is under control. Our key task at the moment is to continue real-time monitoring and draft, if necessary, proposals on additional economic support measures.
It is important thing to maintain a balance between efforts necessary to contain inflation and the need to ensure economic growth.
Mikhail Mishustin: Thank you, Mr Novak.
Last year, the Russian economy showed rather high growth rates. Not so long ago, as you may know, I reported about this to the President. It is essential to maintain this trend. [Our duty is] to focus on studying the needs of businesses and help them to find solutions meeting external and internal challenges. We should also encourage their progress towards implementing the tasks set before us and achieving the national development goals.
Colleagues, I want to ask you to take a very active part, together with the ministers, in the work of the sub-commission on the industries you supervise. This is very important. Please,
take the implementation of the decisions it adopts under your personal control.
All current proposals on new support measures for the industries you oversee should
be submitted via this sub-commission in a one-stop-shop format.
