The agenda: the results of the working visit to China, providing tax deductions to investors under the mechanism of agreements on the protection and promotion of investment, budgetary funding for low-interest farmers’ loans, and amendments to the 2026-2028 draft federal budget.
Mikhail Mishustin’s opening remarks
Report by Minister of Finance Anton Siluanov at the Government meeting
Government meeting
Government meeting
Government meeting
Government meeting
Mikhail Mishustin: Good afternoon, colleagues.
This week, a government delegation visited China. As the President has noted, Russian-Chinese economic relations have reached an unprecedentedly high level. The latest talks with the leadership of the People’s Republic of China, President Xi Jinping and Premier of the State Council Li Qiang, have confirmed our commitment to strengthening comprehensive partnership and strategic collaboration with China still further.
We also held the 30th, anniversary, meeting of heads of Chinese and Russian governments. We discussed significant issues on the bilateral agenda, the progress made in implementing various objectives, set by our leaders.
We have signed a package of important documents aimed at expanding practical collaboration with Chinese colleagues and cooperation, primarily in the sphere of cultural and humanitarian affairs, satellite navigation, investment, energy, transport and the digital economy.
We adopted numerous decisions for exporting more Russian agricultural produce to the Chinese market.
We will continue working with Chinese partners in all key sectors of cooperation.
Colleagues, you should closely monitor the implementation of agreements, reached during the visit, in your respective fields.
Before we start discussing the agenda of the Government meeting, I would like to mention another significant decision.
The President has emphasised that our country can and will manufacture more consumer goods, including machine-tools, equipment, vehicles and medications. For this purpose, it is necessary to launch new production facilities and create modern jobs everywhere, in all regions across the country.
The Government utilises a systemic approach in order to facilitate and promote business initiatives; this includes measures to reduce the administrative burden on businesses, soft-term financing and tax breaks, as well as such essential preferences as agreements on the protection and promotion of investment.
This mechanism was launched five years ago, and about 80 agreements worth nearly 4.5 trillion roubles have been signed since then. They encompass modern greenhouse facilities, wood-working enterprises, food production companies, iron and steel enterprises, and lots more.
Thirteen industrial facilities worth 700 billion roubles have already been put into operation in more than ten Russian regions, with over 8,000 jobs created as a result.
Agreements on the protection and promotion of investment stipulate long-term investment and guarantee permanent taxation terms for them, as well as the preservation of key legislative requirements facilitating their recoupment.
The relevant procedure for obtaining tax deductions has been formulated; this will make it possible to reimburse the parties to these agreements for their expenditures. They apply to federal-level projects, and the relevant regulations have been approved.
It is important that businesses should obtain the most affordable support.
During our working trip to the Pskov Region, we met with residents of the special economic zone and recalled a slogan used at the Suzhou special economic zone in China. This slogan sounds like: “The investor is our emperor,” and the same approach should be applied towards Russian investors.
I suggest that we move on with the agenda. It provides for a discussion on the development of agricultural production.
The President said many times that today Russia not only reliably ensures that it has the food products it needs but also is one of the main food suppliers to the global market.
Demand for Russian agricultural products, both domestically and abroad, is an important performance indicator for assessing the competitiveness in this sector.
Producers with contracts of this kind benefit from short-term preferential lending mechanisms for investment purposes. The Government has already allocated 2 billion roubles to this effect, but considering their current costs, our agricultural producers need additional support.
We will provide an additional sum of over 6 billion roubles for this purpose to finance hundreds of loans.
This will bring the assistance for agricultural producers and processing companies to over 8 billion roubles.
We expect these initiatives to make the domestic agricultural production more resilient while enabling it to keep making quality Russian products for our consumers.
I will now move on to the next important topic on our agenda.
Today, we will review amendments to the draft federal budget for the next three years and the related legislation. We must approve and submit it to the State Duma without delay, since it is expected to review the country’s main financial document in its second reading soon.
We will ensure that specific categories of families with children get additional support. There will also be more support for special military operation participants, of course. In particular, we will increase benefits for paying off mortgages when a third and subsequent child is born into a family in the Far Eastern Federal District. There will also be more benefits for children living in Arctic regions for recreational and health improvement purposes. The Government will also increase housing subsidies for military personnel and will help the Armed Forces expand their educational and healthcare infrastructure.
Substantial funding will go towards expanding the road network and ensuring that regional and local roads comply with the relevant standards. There will be funds for upgrading the public transit fleet and buying over 5,000 vehicles. There will be funding for creating world-class state-of-the-art student campuses, as per the presidential instructions. The same goes for promoting social and economic development in the Donetsk and Lugansk people’s republics, as well as in Zaporozhye and Kherson regions.
Following an extensive and far-reaching debate, we received proposals from members of the State Duma, senators, businesses, experts and the civil society to amend tax law. We took these proposals into account and reported them back to the President.
Small and medium-sized businesses will benefit from a softer VAT transition so that the rate changes gradually, starting with companies generating 20 million roubles in revenue in 2026, followed by companies with 15 million in revenue in 2027, and 10 million in 2028. The Government will also use its authority to rule out any possible risks for taxpayers failing to comply with VAT payment requirements for the first time under the new norms. They could benefit from a moratorium on facing any charges in this connection.
The Government has also taken into consideration proposals it has received from the business community to enable permanent retail outlets in rural and remote areas to keep using tax patents.
There are also measures for promoting domestic software solutions and a preferential VAT framework for IT companies in terms of benefiting from their products. We believe that this must serve as an incentive for further strengthening the sector and achieving our national technological sovereignty.
All these initiatives do not require us to change the overall spending. All we need to do is to adjust the distribution of these funds considering the specific nature of various sectors for enabling them to live up to their potential. This will provide for a smarter use of budget funds while helping our country deliver on its essential undertakings.
I would like to ask Minister of Finance Anton Siluanov to elaborate on all the amendments we have prepared. Go ahead, please.
More to be posted soon…
