Transcript of the beginning of the meeting:

Vladimir Putin: Mr Borisov, I looked over the report on last year’s results. It wasn’t bad. An 18.5% rise in industrial production and no wage arrears are great results. The housing sector is also faring well, housing and utilities costs are reasonable – 14% on average?

Yegor Borisov: Yes.

Vladimir Putin: Several major investment projects are underway – the Chayanda gas field, the Talakanskoye oil and gas condensate field, and the Elginskoye coal deposit. Alrosa is implementing interesting projects, too. How would you assess the results?

Yegor Borisov: What you just mentioned, Mr Putin, suggests a clear upward trend in the regional economy. The increase in investment projects is primarily linked to the instructions you gave during your visits to Yakutia in 2006, 2008 and 2009. The last meeting took place in Tiksi in 2010.

First of all, I would like to emphasise that we have indeed achieved tangible results while implementing your instructions and working on the republic’s development strategy until 2020. First of all, I must say that the map of Yakutia has changed beyond recognition. Let me show you now (showing a map). If we look at 2006, it was like this. But it began changing once we started acting on your orders and implementing our agreements. When we received detailed instructions from you, we found that they were essentially aimed at three goals. The first was to support the traditional local industries: diamond and coal mining. This support was especially valuable during the recession and has accelerated the recovery of these industries: they are already reaching their pre-crisis production levels. The second goal was to create an infrastructure to attract investors in the Republic of Sakha. Over the past few years, we have built 436 km of railways and 900 km of high-voltage power transmission lines. This here is an oil pipeline. All this certainly helps attract investors, which is essential for achieving the third goal – developing new industries.

The republic has an oil industry today. Surgutneftegaz has already produced 3.5 million tonnes of oil this year, after we began implementing your plan. That brought additional income to the region and more than doubled its tax base. This increased budget has helped us resolve some of the local problems: we were able to lay 1,200 km of gas pipelines, build 56 schools, sports facilities and social services. These results are also shown on this map. This is very important for us because it also elevates the public mood, and it has produced real social results: salaries have grown in the region.

Vladimir Putin: How large are salaries in Yakutia now?

Yegor Borisov: Actual wages have increased 26% from 2006.

Vladimir Putin: How much are they?

Yegor Borisov: The average monthly salary in the region is 29,000 roubles. Progress was made on many social projects – 1.5 million square metres of housing has been built, or 300,000 square metres on average. Industrial output in the region slumped during the recession, except diamonds and coal.

Your instructions, combined with our local organisation of work, have already given us a vision of the region’s development until 2025. We will continue working on the projects we have recently initiated, in diamond production (the underground mine construction project you examined last year), and the power transmission lines and railways as well. Energy projects have been launched in the northern regions of Yakutia. There are other facilities we will build up to 2025.

We know what the prospects for our region are, and we are moving in these directions.

Vladimir Putin: What problems do you see?

Yegor Borisov: There are many problems, but I would like to draw your attention to the construction of a railway line to Yakutsk, which entails crossing the River Lena.

Vladimir Putin: This will be expensive.

Yegor Borisov: We have the decisions of the federal government in this respect, which have been adopted as a policy document. So, being a policy document, a strategy…

Vladimir Putin: You are speaking about your plans, but I asked you about your problems. What unresolved problems do you still have in terms of socio-economic development?

Yegor Borisov: Considering the specifics of our republic and the Russian Far East as a whole, we should continue to tackle infrastructure problems. This is the first issue. As for social questions, we have a problem with housing. We are building residential blocks and tearing down dilapidated housing, but the latter still accounts for 15% of the total housing stock. This is a lot; in fact, this is five times more than the country’s average.

Vladimir Putin: How much money have you received from the Housing and Utilities Reform Fund in the last few years for resettling people from dilapidated housing and conducting major repairs?

Yegor Borisov: We have received 1.89 billion roubles through the fund. We have a good working relation with the fund, which we are trying to maintain.

Vladimir Putin: How much will you get this year?

Yegor Borisov: This year we expect to receive 500 million roubles. However, the programme includes a protection method based on a system of reports and submitting the deeds of conveyance. There are no problems in this respect.

Vladimir Putin: How much of the republic’s funds are you prepared to invest?

Yegor Borisov: We plan to invest approximately 2 billion roubles of the region’s funds. This year I set a goal to begin a new programme in order to increase residential housing construction 50% by 2015. We have already launched this programme; it provides for contributions from the republic, the budget, as well as federal assistance for creating a mechanism to ensure the provision of housing to low-income groups of the population. This means that we will need to develop a mortgage lending system. Down payments will be the biggest problem for such people, which is why we have approved relevant allocations.

Vladimir Putin: For subsidising mortgage interest rates?

Yegor Borisov: Yes. We will offer subsidised interest rates and also provide direct subsidies to the people.

Vladimir Putin: Good.