During the visit, a meeting was held to organise an innovative cluster for "solar" energy in the Krasnoyarsk Territory. Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Ivanov, Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Sobyanin, Economic Development Minister Elvira Nabiullina, Minister of Communications and Mass Media Igor Shchegolev, Krasnoyarsk Governor Alexander Khloponin, Krasnoyarsk Deputy Governor Anatoly Tikhonov, and others attended the meeting. 

In September of this year, the mining and chemical plant in the town of Zheleznogorsk launched the production of polycrystalline silicon - the most widely used semi-conducting material for converting solar energy. Strips of this material are employed to make solar batteries 90% of the time. Silicon is the basic material for a number of strategic industries: photoenergy and microelectronics. Only five countries besides Russia produce polysilicon - China, the United States, Japan, Germany and Italy.

Mr Tikhonov, in describing the project, said the plant expects to boost polysilicon output to 4,000 metric tons within four years. By developing its production, he said, by 2020 Russia could join the world's top three producers of solar energy. By 2015, the plant could attract 130 billion roubles in investment and contribute 120 billion roubles to GDP every year.

"We believe that by pooling research and developing this innovatory project, we will be able to compete in new markets," the deputy governor said.

Mr Khloponin asked Mr Putin to see that this major project be well financed.

Sergei Kiriyenko, head of Rosatom corporation, said that it had already invested 3.6 billion roubles in the project and considered it necessary "to firmly hold a controlling stake in Russian enterprises." He added that talks were under way with the ROSNANO state corporation and the possibility was being examined for Vnesheconombank to finance the project. Mr Kiriyenko also suggested "that consideration be given to the possibility of involving the Investment Fund."

Mr Ivanov emphasised that the idea of such a facility was "very interesting because it involved high technologies." "It is one of the few projects that increases the economy's energy efficiency," he said.

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Mr Putin's concluding remarks at the meeting:

Vladimir Putin: Let us do it the following way. As agreed, Rosatom and the Krasnoyarsk Governor will draft their proposal. Draw it up as a general outline, but with an eye to the future and for the requirements to implement the project as a whole. That will be the first step.

As the second step, I will act on your request and prepare instructions for these state corporations and the bank. The Economic Development Ministry and you will work on it together. But in general the project is good. It was not accidental that we visit this start-up facility now that a bridge has been completed. And it is not accidental that we are here. Because if we say that one of the priorities for the country's development is the development of Siberia in the territorial sense of the word, then construction of infrastructure facilities and promotion of new technologies are undoubted priorities for solving these problems. Let us get down to business.

Make a description of what you would like to have from us by way of support, and let us begin.