Prime Minister Vladimir Putin's introductory remarks:

Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen,

Today we will discuss the performance of the state corporation RusNano and plans for its development.

First of all, I'd like to thank everyone who organised the presentation for us, which has clearly shown that the company is pursuing a proactive strategy and attracting talented specialists with ambitious ideas and promising solutions.

Our strategic goal is well-known - we must create a strong and competitive nanotech industry, whose products will be in demand domestically and on global markets. Russia has the necessary academic potential, specialists and technology to meet this goal.

The government has provided substantial support to the nanotech industry. To mention just one example, it contributed 130 billion roubles to the corporation's authorised capital when it was established.

What's equally important, businesses are showing more interest in projects that apply nanotech in practice. As a matter of fact, RusNano was established for this very purpose - to consolidate companies eager to invest in nanotech production and infrastructure. The corporation's efforts have been very effective so far. It has created an effective system for evaluating business plans from scratch, which has approved 93 projects worth 300 billion roubles. Twenty-five of them have begun to receive funding.

RusNano will soon change its legal status. The state corporation will be turned into an open joint-stock company, which will provide additional development opportunities. For example, RusNano will be able to acquire the core assets of companies, including companies with international shareholders. Mr Anatoly Chubais (RusNano CEO) has just spoken about this. RusNano has already started working on this and is developing ties with international partners. RusNano will also be able to buy patents for nanotech innovations from other companies.

Of course, this applies only to the assets that will help boost the effectiveness of RusNano's performance and stimulate the creation of effective technological chains.

This should be taken into account when outlining development priorities of RusNano.

I'd like Mr Chubais to report back on progress made on these issues in detail.

The key objective of RusNano is to attract private investment to the Russian nanotech industry and to form a competitive market for nanotech products. This objective will remain unchanged after the corporation is reformed.

I'd also like to inform you that today I signed a government resolution setting out the terms for providing RusNano with government guarantees on the loans it will take out up to 2015. I met with RusNano executives to discuss the corporation's financial problems. As you know, many companies found themselves in a predicament during the economic crisis, and RusNano is no exception. We agreed that the corporation will be allowed to reclaim part of its resources that were requisitioned during the crisis, including through government guarantees. We expect this measure to strengthen the positions of RusNano as the key financial institution, critical for the development of the nanotech industry and research.

In closing, our goal is to increase the output of the nanotech industry to 900 billion roubles by 2015.
Obviously, this is a big challenge, but we have every opportunity to meet it. Nanotech innovations are applied extensively in transport, construction, steelmaking, medicine and the pharmaceuticals industry.

It is necessary to get prospective customers more interested in nanotech products and to help members of this market develop strong business relationships with one another. What's important here is the position of RusNano and the government agencies that regulate and supervise the economic areas where nanotech products can be used. They should do everything in their power to create an environment that stimulates demand for such products.

It is also necessary to create an effective education and training system for specialists employed in the industry, and getting leading Russian universities and research centres involved in this. For this purpose, we can use the resources of the Fund for Initiatives in Infrastructure and Education, to be founded by RusNano.

Let's get down to work and discuss the issues I've raised.

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Prime Minister Vladimir Putin's closing remarks:

What was said here today is very important. We have created a modern innovative centre, and based on this and what RusNano has already accomplished, we can take a broader look at the issue of innovation.

The only thing I'd like to ask the RusNano team is not to expand the scope of their activity infinitely. Mr Chubais and I have already mentioned this today.

Clearly, there is a great deal of research areas, but we created this centre to work on nanotechnology, after all.
I understand that there are many related industries, interesting avenues of research that can't but attract your attention, and some of them are very important and even critical.

But let's develop separate programmes for them, concentrating our resources on them and developing specific oversight policies and legislation.

On the other hand, if your projects overlap with someone else's, you should certainly try to work out best practices, which will help create an innovative environment.

We need this and will be grateful for your help in this.

Thank you.