Vladimir Putin's opening remarks:

Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen.

Before we start discussing the issues on the agenda of today's meeting of the Government Commission on Monitoring Foreign Investment, I'd like to share a few positive figures with you.

According to preliminary estimates of the Bank of Russia, the Russian economy has received over $27 billion in foreign direct investment (FDI) in the first six months of 2011. This is more than in the same period of last year but slightly less than before the crisis, in the first six months of 2007, when FDI totalled $29.6 billion. In the first half of 2010, FDI amounted to $19.4 billion.

Our main task now is to maintain this positive trend, while focusing on the quality of long-term investment to ensure that it is accompanied by new technology and innovations and the creation of modern enterprises and well paid high-tech jobs. I am confident that we are capable of reaching $60-$70 billion a year in foreign direct investment – I repeat, $60 to $70 billion a year – and achieving a positive balance between capital inflow and outflow in general.

The overall market situation, Russia's economic recovery and the measures taken to improve the business climate give us hope that this positive trend will continue. Both Russian and foreign companies are resuming work on plans that were put on hold during the crisis. New investment projects have been initiated. At the previous meeting of this commission, we approved the request of the French company Alstom to acquire a large stake in Russia's Transmashholding. As a result of this deal, modern mechanical engineering clusters with a common technological cycle, from R&D to large-scale projects and batch production of rail cars, locomotives and other rail equipment, will be set up at the Tver and Bryansk plants.

Today we will coordinate another promising deal. Plans to establish a strategic alliance between Russian gas producer Novatek and the French petrochemical company Total – a good, reliable and long-standing partner – were announced early this year. As its first step, Total bought 12% of Novatek's shares in April. Now its subsidiary plans to buy a 20.5% stake in Yamal LNG. This will create the necessary foundation for the joint implementation of a large-scale, comprehensive programme to develop deposits and produce liquefied natural gas on the Yamal Peninsula.

During a recent interregional conference in Yekaterinburg, we spoke about the importance and good prospects of this project for the Urals Federal District and, in fact, the whole of Russia. A modern LNG plant, a transport infrastructure and a new Arctic port, Sabetta, will be built in Yamal. The first LNG tankers are to be loaded at its terminals in 2018. Overall, investors and the government intend to allocate at least 1 trillion roubles for the project, including for the development of the industrial and transport infrastructure and the manufacture of ice-class LNG tankers. As a result, we will be able to increase Russia's share in the promising global LNG market and to diversify our export routes. This project will also help revive the Northern Sea Route, which is a goal of strategic importance for Russia. In a word, this is an interesting project with multidimensional impact.

Let's begin our work.