Prime Minister Vladimir Putin held a presidium meeting of the Presidential Council for Priority National Projects and Demographic Policy.

Opening remarks by Vladimir Putin:

Good afternoon,

We are here today for the first meeting of the newly-formed Council for Priority National Projects and Demographic Policy. I would like to say up front that the coordination and decision-making scheme we have used has proved effective, so we are going to use it further.

In 2006 and 2007, we have successfully used an innovative project-based approach to handling the most pressing issues in education, healthcare, housing construction and development of agriculture.

Thanks to the concentration of resources and combined efforts of federal and local government bodies, we brought real change to these areas despite the modest investment in comparison with the financing of each of the sectors as a whole. Housing construction grew and primary healthcare services improved; high technologies are more broadly used in healthcare than before. Substantial investment was attracted to agriculture and to social services in rural areas. In education, more federal universities were established to set a new benchmark in education. Pilot projects were launched in the regions to reform the local education and healthcare systems.

Our attention is still focused on these important areas today, in line with the concept of the country's long-term social and economic development and with the draft state budgets for the next few years.

Priority national projects will certainly be carried on, with 330 billion roubles earmarked to finance them this year.

As you must remember, the council's meeting last February adopted a resolution to draw up a concept for further reforms in education, healthcare, and housing and utilities. We have to build on the former national projects experience and make plans through 2012 formulating them as comprehensive programmes for each area. One such programme, for the development of agriculture, has already been adopted.

Today we will discuss other draft programmes, which need to be considered thoroughly.

Let me emphasise that we do not need more declarations of intent today.

All of our programmes need to be based on common principles and methodology. They should cover priority changes and provide clear guidelines for government bodies at all levels.

Finally, all the programme components need to be coordinated with the existing budget plans for a respective period, and required human and organising resources need to be considered.

We'll have to finalise these programmes at the next council meeting.

Today's agenda also includes a series of specific issues.

One of them has to do with using innovation programmes at professional training institutions, another, with providing better medical service for cardio-vascular disorders.

Improving professional training quality is one of the top priorities of our Education project. Essentially, we need to thoroughly revise its content, bringing it up to a level required for modern high-tech industries.

A total of 57 colleges and universities have taken part in the project over the 30 months since its inception, as well as 148 technical schools and associate degree institutions. They have developed around 2,000 innovative courses and programmes, now used to train over 250,000 students.

I would like to point out an increase of young people entering technical schools participating in the project. It shows that our effort to prepare competitive industrial workers and technology sub-professionals has begun to pay off.

Financing for innovation programmes in higher professional education has been approved at 10 billion roubles this year.

Another 1.8 billion has been allocated for improving associate degree programmes, the amount to be raised to 4.8 billion if required.

It is important to consolidate and spread the accumulated experience now. Please give more attention to this idea.

Cardio-vascular disorders are another pressing problem today; you must know that.

There are alarming statistics suggesting that infarctions and strokes account for the bulk of the current death toll in the country, especially among the economically active population. The problem is key to generally extending life expectancy, which is another government priority.

On the whole, modern medical science has methodologies for treatment of cardio-vascular diseases. It is now important to ensure that all patients in all parts of the country receive timely and quality medical service. A project to set up regional and municipal cardio-vascular centres started this year is expected to help solve the problem.

A regional cardio-vascular centre will be established in each constituent entity of the Russian Federation with three to six specialised cardio-vascular departments at municipal health centres. These arrangements will help hospitalise every patient quickly and provide qualified medical assistance three to four hours into an exacerbation of the affliction.

Diagnosis services will be open 24 hours a day, as well as tele-medical communications lines; ambulance service will work more effectively and more rehabilitation programmes will be launched.

The Government has allocated 3.6 billion roubles for the project this year, including 2.9 million to buy equipment in 12 Russian regions, and 731 million roubles to equip federal clinics. We need to look at the progress here today.

And finally, more attention needs to be given to cardio-vascular disorder awareness and prevention. Some diseases are more easily prevented than cured and cardio-vascular disorders are just such a case.

Let us go on to discussion now.