Vladimir Putin's opening remarks:

Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen.

We have agreed to hold a number of meetings in order to prepare the country's main financial document, the budget, and to plan budget spending for key economic sectors. We will begin with one of our priorities, agriculture.

Several years ago we set ourselves the goal of ensuring that quality and affordable domestically produced food is available in Russia.

We adopted a state development programme for agribusiness and allocated over 300 billion roubles from the federal budget for its implementation in 2008 and 2009. Allocations totalling 107 billion roubles have been approved for 2010.

We can say with confidence that this investment and other measures designed to support agriculture have produced the desired result.

Agricultural production grew 12% despite the complicated conditions created by the crisis. This is 4.3% higher than we planned. We have enough grain, the foundation of agriculture, to meet domestic needs and for export.

Also, a considerable portion of agricultural imports has been replaced with domestic produce, in particular pork, poultry, milk and dairy products.

In 2009 alone, the sector received over 453 billion roubles in subsidised loans, out of which about 300 billion roubles were short-term and more than 110 billion roubles were investment loans.

As much as 40 billion roubles have been earmarked to support small agricultural businesses. I am pleased to say that over three million square metres of housing have been built in rural areas, half of which went to young families and professionals.

On this point I'd like to add that there are still many social problems in rural areas. The three million roubles I mentioned are by no means enough to ensure what people would consider significant improvements. But this is a positive trend by all means, and we must keep up the pace; we must maintain the sustainable development of the sector and the positive trends in rural social development, and make sure that we don't lose the gains we've made under the national project and the state programme for agricultural development.

Therefore, we must determine our priorities and direct budget spending towards them.

First, we must continue to work towards an effective way to offset seasonal fluctuations in prices for agricultural products, raw materials and foods. We must create an environment in which our export potential can grow, and we must develop the infrastructure of the domestic market. When I mentioned export potential, I had grain in mind. The potential for grain exports is growing. But we must also find a niche on the markets for other agricultural products, which is certainly possible.

Second, it is important that we ensure the balanced development of agribusiness, which means that an increase in grain production must be followed by an increase in livestock production. This will considerably increase domestic demand for grain, strengthen our livestock farms, and enable us to saturate the domestic market with quality meat and dairy products.

Of course, we must also continue to focus on our goal of improving the quality of life in rural areas and, as I have said before, solving social problems.

I'd like to remind you that the first state programme for agricultural development will come to an end in 2012. Therefore, we should start considering the priorities of the next five-year programme, which we will begin implementing in 2013.

I am confident that if we plan our work correctly and use available resources wisely, there is no doubt we will achieve positive results.

Let's get to work.