Minutes of the beginning of the meeting:

Vladimir Putin: Mr Denin, we have already started discussing the situation in the region. I know things are being adjusted, and that you are attaining pre-crisis levels in many areas. But there are still some problems. What are the most serious of them?

Nikolai Denin: Mr Putin, allow me to tell you about your instructions to us to raise wages and salaries. Unfortunately, price hikes have exceeded wage-and-salary raises. On September 1, 2010, we raised the salaries of all teachers by 20%. It was also decided to raise the wages of public-sector workers and civil servants effective December 1 last year. Their salaries are currently being recalculated. Starting February 10, wages and salaries were raised by 10% in virtually all 280 municipal entities, including 225 rural communities. We have reached an agreement with the business community that they will raise average wages and salaries by 15% throughout 2011. The current average monthly salary is 19,900 roubles.

And now a few words about projects, which are currently being implemented. One project, the largest in Europe, will produce 20,000 tonnes of meat in slaughter weight and will create over 2,000 jobs. Over 3 billion roubles have been disbursed to date. In all, 6,000 head of cattle will arrive this May. The project is scheduled to reach its full production volume, at all nine municipal entities, in 2014.

Regional industrial production expanded by 29% this January over last year, as well as 21% through 2010. The agro-industrial sector expanded 7%, and the meat sector 22%. At the same time, dairy declined 3%. Unfortunately, private farmers are slaughtering their cattle population. But we are cooperating with the meat-processing companies here. For instance, dairy-product processors in the Krasnogorsk District sell cows to local residents who should annually provide 1.5 tonnes of milk for processing under three-year contracts. Over 200 people currently want to acquire their own cows. I think this will boost profitability and add to milk processing.

We start to implement a project to process 200,000 tonnes of potatoes and have already chosen the site for it. The Bryansk Region used to harvest over a million tonnes of potatoes, selling more than 700,000 tonnes and meeting the demand of the Arctic territories and the Defence Ministry. This economic subsector employs over 25,000 workers. This is an import-substitution project.

Vladimir Putin: Will you start making potato chips?

Nikolai Denin: Yes, and French fries for that matter. We are currently importing all these products. The Bryansk-Konfi processing plant which controls virtually the entire Russian market used to make 12,000 tonnes of assorted products in Soviet times. They produced 32,000 tonnes last year. We have now chosen the site and  will realise another corporate-expansion project.

In January 2011, housing and municipal-utility prices increased 13.2%, with gas costs being revised on a quarterly basis. Service-sector prices had increased by 14.2% last year. Not a single municipal enterprise has exceeded the Government ceilings.

Vladimir Putin: Good work.

Nikolai Denin: But we need to assess the production costs of various services. We were forced to make some organisational decisions due to overstated expenses regarding the payment of separate wage-and-salary categories and dividends.

Vladimir Putin: We have already discussed this issue. Please focus on the rural healthcare system and outpatient clinics, while overhauling the healthcare sector.