Mr Ivanov warned against continued procrastination with the drafting of the federal law on direct mixed (combined) transportation and said that Prime Minister Vladimir Putin had earlier referred to this in Novosibirsk on Wednesday during the discussion and approval of Russia's Transport Strategy.

Mr Ivanov said combined transportation, when several types of transportation are used on the same route, should be introduced without delay. "The law must be approved," he said.

The Deputy Prime Minister also spoke in favour of adjusting Russian legislation on software to global standards. He said: "The situation in the sphere of creating and applying software in the country and abroad is rather contradictory," adding that Russian programmers had a substantial potential but "the share of our end products on the software markets remains insignificant."

Mr Ivanov said: "Russian software exports were worth barely $2 billion last year. This figure is revealing, although the main goal now is not to increase software exports but to create facilities for large-scale production of software for the domestic market."

Another aspect in this area is the training of personnel, he said. "We don't have an efficient system of turning talented young people into the wealth of our IT sector," the Deputy Prime Minister said.

Mr Ivanov concluded that Russia still faces "many problems in the IT field" and said, "the common task is to solve them as soon as possible."