Prime Minister Vladimir Putin chairs a meeting of the Government Presidium
Prime Minister Vladimir Putin focused on financial support from the federal government for constituent entities. Funding for these programmes grew by 400 billion roubles in 2009, reaching 1.5 trillion roubles. Mr Putin also touched on the issue of car loans, noting that he signed a government resolution on February 4, allocating another billion roubles to subsidise interest rates on car loans. The subsidies will cover two thirds of the refinance rate of the Central Bank of the Russian Federation for car loans.
Mr Putin and Mr Chubais discussed the work of the Russian Corporation of Nanotechnologies in the preceding two years, its priority projects and the work on streamlining the corporation’s legal framework, as well as the overall development of the innovation sector. Mr Putin focused on pooling efforts with Western partners.