Vladimir Putin's opening remarks:

Ladies and gentlemen, at our meeting today we will discuss a perennial problem for Russia: road construction and maintenance.

Undoubtedly, we have seen some progress in this area lately. For example, 20, or to be more exact 21, large bridges across major rivers in European Russia and Siberia have been commissioned over the past four years.

It is worth mentioning that the construction on at least 20 of these bridges began in Soviet times and later simply ground to a halt. Funding ran dry, which was a problem for the entire economy. Moreover, those incomplete bridges created difficulties for people. All these debts have been settled.

All in all, we managed to build over 3,000 kilometers of federal and regional roads in 2009, which is 30% more than in the prosperous year of 2008. This includes the Sochi bypass, a very large project, which was finished and opened for traffic. The road will substantially improve the environmental and transport situation in the region.

In 2010 we plan to complete another long-standing construction project: a direct route between Chita and Khabarovsk, which will effectively complete Russia's integrated road network. It will be possible to drive from Murmansk to Vladivostok by motorway.

Our plans also include the construction and reconstruction of the ring road around St. Petersburg, the Don federal motorway, transport infrastructure in Vladivostok and other important projects.

However, today we need to speak more about problems in this area, rather than about our achievements.

Naturally, these problems existed before, but the financial downturn has made them worse. Some problems have become particularly acute.

First, we are not doing enough repair work on existing roads is, which negatively effects usability and safety. Although we may have saved on scheduled maintenance, later we have to spend two or even three times more on rebuilding dilapidated roads. Incidentally, this applies to both federal and regional roads.

Second, we have still not solved the problem of economically justified cost and the quality of road construction.

It is obvious that cost estimates are currently exaggerated, and that the service lives of roads that have been built are not based on reality.

Moreover, I have driven on some newly built roads, and they already need repairs. I will tell [Transport Minister] Igor Levitin about this. I will tell him what I have seen.

The issue of introducing so-called full cycle contracts has been repeatedly brought up. Under these contracts, a contractor not only builds a road, but also maintains and repairs it over a long period of time, virtually the entire service life of the road.

Necessary legislative changes have not yet been made.

Progress has also been slow on updating the regulatory framework for electronic bidding and applying it to road construction.

Finally, we effectively lack a mechanism that would ensure the stability and predictability of funding for road construction, while it is clear that the successful implementation of expensive and capital-intensive projects is impossible if the amount of funds allocated for the project can change at any moment.

So, we need to more clearly define government and private sources of financing for infrastructure. This applies to both large, strategic construction projects and our ongoing maintenance commitments.

The Ministry of Transport has a number of proposals to address these issues.

Let us get down to work.

Prime Minister Vladimir Putin's closing remarks:

As for road construction and repairs, I would like to inform you that we have decided to set up a budgetary fund for these purposes, along the lines of the Investment Fund. This new fund will accumulate minimal resources to construct and maintain the country's network of roads. Russian regions will have the right to establish similar funds.