Transcript of the beginning of the meeting:
Vladimir Putin: You and I have already discussed how things are faring, haven’t we? So what kind of problems are you presently facing? Is there any problem that you would like to speak about in particular?
Sergei Mitin: Mr Putin, this year has been good to us. The region has posted sound industrial growth figures, which slightly exceed the nation’s average. In agriculture, we’ve been performing well for two consecutive years. We’ve launched several large facilities and are now working with an eye on domestic markets, most notably St Petersburg. We’ve been lucky to have favourable weather conditions this year. We’ve had no wildfires, no droughts, no flooding. We’ve also been performing well in terms of residential housing construction. We may well reach a 10% growth year-on-year in the sector this year.
Vladimir Putin: What about public education and healthcare?
Sergei Mitin: In healthcare, we’ve been implementing quite effectively the programme…
Vladimir Putin: On modernisation, correct?
Sergei Mitin: We’ve never had such an ambitious programme to implement before.
Vladimir Putin: How much money have you received in allocations?
Sergei Mitin: We’ve received some 2.6 billion roubles.
Vladimir Putin: And how many sites do you have?
Sergei Mitin: We have 84 sites…
Vladimir Putin: Up for modernisation?
Sergei Mitin: We’re upgrading 79 sites. We’ve never had so much money – 6 billion this year alone – to spend on the healthcare sector’s needs. This is nearly 50% more.
Vladimir Putin: You should make sure that the money is well spent and that the prices are set accordingly.
Sergei Mitin: We monitor this carefully. I personally monitor all of the measures taken. These have already produced some positive results, by the way. The region’s mortality rate is now on the decline. Admittedly, though, the demographic situation remains rather complicated, with elderly people accounting for as much as 31.5% of the population. But we’ve managed to bring that rate down nonetheless.
Vladimir Putin: What about the birth rate?
Sergei Mitin: It’s expected to hit 11.2 percent this year.
Vladimir Putin: Is it on the rise?
Sergei Mitin: It’s going up little by little, yes, and more families now tend to have a second and a third child. This trend can also be seen elsewhere in the country.
Vladimir Putin: Good. That was our ambition when we came out with the idea of maternity capital a few years ago. Have your raised teacher pay yet?
Sergei Mitin: Yes, we’ve increased it even above the region’s all-sector average. The gap wasn’t as big at the beginning of this year, but we’re still increasing it further. The average teacher salary in September was 19,000 roubles compared with the all-sector average of 18,500.
Vladimir Putin: That’s good.