Opening remarks by Sergei Ivanov:

Good afternoon, colleagues.

Today we are holding a regular meeting of the Council of General and Chief Designers, Leading Scientists and High-Tech Professionals.

We will discuss the production of a new generation of carbon fillers, binders and polymer composites.

We have two main speakers for this discussion: Ivan Kamenskikh, deputy director of the Rosatom State Nuclear Power Corporation, and Yevgeny Kablov, director general of the All-Russian Research Institute of Aviation Materials, and one co-speaker: Kompozit director Leonid Melamed.

In addition, Mr Kablov will speak to us briefly about the findings of a task group instructed by the Council to prepare proposals for improving the selection and implementation criteria for key innovatory projects of national significance, including projects to be considered by our Council.

Before starting with the agenda, allow me to say a couple of words.

In spite of the rapid increase in the use of new polymer composites, including those using carbon fibres, Russia, unfortunately, has lowered the production and use of such materials in all our high-tech industries. In addition, the technology used at existing facilities dates primarily from the 1970s and 80s.

At that time, Russia really led the world in the production of carbon fibres, and materials and products based on carbon fibre. Currently, unfortunately, we have lost most of this advantage. What's more, we are seriously lagging behind in structural carbon plastics: both production and consumption have dropped, and quality has deteriorated.

Not to simply speak off the cuff, I will quote some figures. In the United States, consumption of polymer composites per capita is 7.8 kg, compared with 400 g in Russia. Industry analysts estimate world demand for polymer composites at 53 billion euros. Understandably, with such a forecast, Russia cannot build a competitive and dynamic home market for carbon fibre or carbon fibre products. So the objective of our meeting is to focus the Council on this problem and work out ways to radically alter the situation.

Concerning production, I can only add another sad statistics. Russia's output of such materials today is 0.03% of the world total. This is our share, within the statistical error, of course.

So let's discuss how we will proceed, because without these materials we will not turn out competitive products either in the defence industry, or in high-tech civilian products for the world market, which perhaps is worth discussing first.

If there are no objections, let's get started.