Vladimir Putin's opening remarks:

Good afternoon, colleagues.

I and some of us here have just met with the participants in the First Social Business Forum. It was about creating the most trouble free and comfortable environment for attracting investment and about promising new projects.

I want to stress this again – the development of small and medium-sized businesses has an undeniably tremendous significance for the country. This means new jobs and improving the efficiency and sustainability of the national economy and, ultimately, the well-being of millions of people, to build a strong middle class.

The conversation was quite frank and it was critical to some extent, on some issues, but it was also very constructive and useful. Incidentally, the meeting participants, representatives of business community, in addition to content-based items, spoke out about the problems associated with labour organisation, and complained that you, dear colleagues, are not accessible. You or your deputies! True, I pointed out that all key issues related to the national economy, the drafting and adoption of laws and regulations, are discussed in direct consultation with business organisations. This is a "mainstay" with both the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs and Delovaya Rossiya ("Business Russia"). But if these people say that there is a lack of communication with regard to the resolution of specific issues while promoting long-term projects, then that's the way it is. I want you to do something about this.

Today we will examine how the institution of regulatory impact assessment for regulatory activities introduced last summer is working. In 2010, we made a detailed inventory of the status of state supervision and monitoring in education, agriculture, healthcare and construction. Based on the results, we prepared a package of specific proposals and legislative initiatives.

In addition, a number of systematic solutions in the field of licensing and accreditation have been adopted. So, licenses will be perpetual, and from July 2012, many licensing procedures will be converted to an electronic format.

Next, I want to remind you that since July 1, 2009, notification procedures for opening a new business for 20 types of business have been established, and over 80,000 entrepreneurs have already availed themselves of this opportunity. In the near future, these kinds of procedures are planned for another 10 types of economic activity – primarily for some public services.

Again, we will closely watch the progress on eliminating administrative barriers at all levels of government, and will certainly continue working at this. It is crucial to break the vicious circle where, in place of some eliminated barriers, other ones arise. Therefore, the Ministry of Economic Development must examine all the drafted legislation to assess the regulatory impact in the area of state monitoring and establish mandatory requirements for products, safety of production processes and conformity assessments. Of course, the evaluation procedure should be as public and transparent as possible, with the extensive participation of business representatives, self-regulating organizations and the public and expert community.

At the same time, existing documents, – not just bills that have been drafted, but especially those documents that are criticized by the business community and make it difficult to conduct business and to invest – should be subject to anti-bureaucracy scrutiny. In the future, we should instate two filters in the elaboration of any bill that directly affects the development of entrepreneurship in our country. Strictly speaking, they are already used this way. I consider it necessary to point out the need to improve them – at an early stage, it is the agency itself that prepares a bill or a by-law that must act as this filter, and the secondary, verifying filter is at the level of the Economic Development Ministry.

Also, we should extend this experience to the regions. In this regard, I ask the Economic Development Ministry to provide our regional governments and federal agencies with methodological support to develop model approaches to assessing the most common state regulation measures.

This is one issue.

The next issue that I would like you to focus on is the following. Let me remind you that – as of January 1, 2012, we are planning a substantial increase in allowances for military personnel and military pensioners. Today we will consider the draft legislative acts that will become the legal basis for the transition to a new system of monetary compensation for servicemen.

First, as of New Year's Day, we will increase wages for servicemen 250%-300%. Let me remind you that these are initial figures. For example, a lieutenant in the Armed Forces will receive a salary of up to 50,000 roubles, but the base salary will be 50% of that – now it is approximately 20%.

Second. The role of incentive bonuses for those troops who perform critical tasks, who serve in high risk areas and who increase their skill levels will increase significantly. I am referring to the personnel who bear the primary responsibility for maintaining the state's defensive capability. Insurance payments for death, injury or illness of military personnel will also increase several-fold.

Regarding military pensions, as we have said repeatedly, they will be raised no less than 50% on January 1, 2012. Today's pensions of military personnel, especially junior officers, are at a low level, and of course, we must resolve this as we agreed, as we promised – to ensure that people performing difficult, high risk work are provided with the appropriate social guarantees. Ensuring these guarantees is our primary duty!

And finally, another very important and sensitive social issue that requires an integrated approach, as well as the coordinated work of federal and regional governments and even NGOs. I am referring to helping children and teenagers, victims of abuse. There are plenty of these problems in our country, unfortunately.

Many regions, however, are implementing targeted regional programmes aimed at protecting the rights and interests of child. Services for dysfunctional families and emergency response teams have been established, and parents and the media are also active in this endeavour.

And once again I want to stress that there is still no systematic approach to these issues, and we have to create one, this systematic approach. We must engender zero tolerance in society to all forms of violence against children.

I ask the Health Ministry, Ministry of Education and the regions to emphasise this in their work. We need actively to engage the public, human rights organisations, all who care about this issue, all concerned citizens.

Please, let's get down to work.