Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Zhukov's opening remarks:

Ladies and gentlemen,

Let me welcome all those who have gathered in Moscow and the Russian regions for this videoconference, and I invite everyone to discuss our progress on the Healthcare, Education, and Affordable and Comfortable Housing for Russian Citizens national priority projects over the first six months of the year, as well as the construction and equipping of regional perinatal centres. We are currently connected with all regional governors.

Today we will hear from the ministers responsible for these projects, as well the heads of six Russian regions - the Republic of Mordovia, and the Volgograd, Krasnoyarsk, Sverdlovsk, Murmansk and Tver Regions.

Ladies and gentlemen,

Overall, the results of the priority projects in the first quarter of 2010 have been positive.

I will now speak about each of the projects, beginning with Healthcare.

A total of 428,336 children were born in the first quarter of this year, up 1.5% (nearly 6,500) from the first quarter of 2009. The mortality rate decreased by nearly 11,000 (2%), to 565,600 deaths.

Natural decline in the population fell by 12.2%, or 87,300 people, as compared with the same period last year.

Circulatory diseases remain major killers in the Russian Federation. Over the period in questions, 14 regions joined the 24 that are already participating in programmes to improve the quality of medical services provided to patients with vascular diseases. The mortality rate associated with vascular diseases decreased by 4.6% in the first quarter.

Moreover, this year 22 regions joined the 12 already participating in the programme to improve the quality of medical services provided to victims of traffic accidents, which resulted in a 16% drop in the mortality rate from traffic accidents in the first quarter.

We also saw a 6.4% drop in the mortality rate due to external causes, including alcohol poisoning (down 10.7%).

More than 287,000 women received medical assistance during pregnancy and childbirth through the Birth Certificate programme, as well as 494,000 infants under 12 months of age; the infant mortality rate dropped by 3.7%.

I would like to ask the regional governors at this videoconference today to speak in detail about the construction of perinatal centres in their regions. The pace at which these centres are being built remains unsatisfactory.

Construction has been finished on a high-tech medical centre in Khabarovsk; similar centres are close to completion in Chelyabinsk, Krasnoyarsk and Tyumen.

At the same time, I would like to call the attention of the Ministry of Healthcare and Social Development to the fact that an insufficient amount (11.7%) of the federal expenditures allocated for the first quarter have actually been spent, as well as to the significant lag in implementing the measures stipulated in the national priority project.

I would also like to say a few words about the Education priority project. An additional 15 universities have been selected through competitive bidding to take part in the priority project, as well as the 14 national research universities established in 2009. And so this year about 10 billion roubles will be spent on funding for 29 national research universities.

These universities will receive additional funding to carry out development programmes over and above the budgeted funding. These programmes must also have additional, extra-budgetary sources of financing, which should ensure that the total funding allocated for university development programmes enables qualitative improvement of the education process.

Five new universities were established, in addition to the Siberian and Southern Federal Universities. These are the Northern (Arctic), Kazan (Volga), Ural, Far-Eastern and North-Eastern Universities.

In the first quarter, programmes to support gifted young people included competitions held in every Russian region to award more than 5,000 grants at the regional, national and international levels.

At present, the regions are finishing up the competitions for the country's best teachers. By presidential decree, federal support will be provided to the 1,000 most outstanding teachers who win at the national level, and the amount of the financial support will be raised to 200,000 roubles.

I would like to point out that there has been a delay in the disbursement of federal funds for the programme to pay teachers bonuses for classroom management. I ask the Ministry of Education to resolve this problem as soon as possible.

And now a few words about the Affordable and Comfortable Housing for Russian Citizens national priority project.

The first quarter of this year saw an 8.3% drop in the amount of new housing commissioned as compared with the same period in 2009. The number of individual homes also declined, by 3.4%.

I ask the regional governors speaking today to be more specific about the planned measures to revive housing construction.

Nevertheless, the number of mortgages issued in the first quarter nearly doubled, to 40 billion roubles, while the weighted average loan interest decreased, to 13.6% (it was 14.2% in the first quarter of 2009).

At the same time, there is significant room for further reduction here, including by cutting inflation and the Central Bank refinancing rate, and also through other policies in effect to build up the mortgage refinancing system.

I would also like to discuss measures to provide housing for all veterans and disabled persons from the Great Patriotic War separately.

Regional authorities have reported that they have fulfilled the requests of all veterans who applied for better housing before March 1, 2005.

Nevertheless, let me remind you that we have made a commitment to provide appropriate housing to all veterans, including those who applied before and after that date. In accordance with a March 31, 2010 government executive order, an additional 34.5 billion roubles have been allocated to regional governments for this programme.

I am asking the regional governors to make this programme a priority. Progress of this programme is under special government supervision.