Vladimir Putin's opening remarks:

Good afternoon,

Today let's discuss funding for social policy, including healthcare, for the near term.

Despite some complications, we have managed to maintain a positive trend in these areas. This is borne out by objective data.

First, the birth rate continues to go up - by 1.3% in the first four months of this year. And the death rate continues to decline gradually - by 2.4%. These results have been achieved by addressing precisely those causes of death that are identified as priorities in the National Health Project, particularly cardio-vascular disease, tuberculosis, cancer and fatal traffic accidents.

Of course, these are modest figures, but we continue to see a positive trend.

Obviously, these social policy achievements come at a price. In 2010, we allocated 624 billion roubles for maternity capital, children allowances and other social payments, and an additional 144.8 billion roubles for the priority National Health Project.

As was already announced, next year we are planning to launch a large-scale project to modernise our healthcare system. We intend to raise an additional 460 billion roubles for this by raising insurance premiums.

But I'd like to emphasise that this additional money will only go toward solving concrete problems: repairing hospitals and outpatient clinics, providing medical centres with prescription drugs and equipment, and increasing the salaries of medical workers.

I said this before, but I will say it again today: funds will be provided only to those regions and institutions that submit modernisation programmes that are clear, understandable and meet the project's requirements. Regional institutions need guidelines for doing this. As we've agreed, the Ministry of Healthcare should act in a timely manner to formulate this modernisation plan and its main parameters, and then submit it to the regions and medical institutions.

That being said, this increase in the federal funding should by no means encourage regions to reduce their own spending on healthcare. I hope that regional leaders will heed this.

Let me be clear. If some regions have already started repairing hospitals and have promised to buy equipment, they must keep their word, carry out their plans, and not shift the financial burden over to the federal budget. They must complete all the projects that they have begun and pay for all of their commitments in full.

Soon the meeting of the Presidium of the Council on Priority National Projects will set development targets for healthcare for the period 2011-2013, including such priorities as promoting a healthy lifestyle, providing assistance to mothers and children, and increasing access to high-tech medical care.

As I've said, today we must determine what kinds of resources we can allocate for these and other key areas of social policy.

Another problem that I'd like to discuss today concerns investment spending.

We launched a programme to build new high-tech clinics and perinatal centres some time ago. Some of them have been opened and are now operating, and very successfully I might add.

I think the idea of making high-tech medical care available to people in the regions is proving its merit. I believe that we should finish construction on all medical centres in the near future so that they can start providing the full range of services to people as soon as possible.

Let's begin our discussion.