The Prime Minister of the Russian Federation Vladimir Putin had a working meeting with Deputy Prime Minister - Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin and Deputy Prime Minister Igor Sechin.

Vladimir Putin's opening remarks:

Good afternoon.

In the context of the world financial crisis we in Russia constantly deal with the problems of various sectors of the real economy and we have more than once discussed the issue of support of the automobile industry. The relevant measures have been taken.

At the same time the situation in the industry remains very serious and complicated and calls for further attention on the part of the Government. Opinions vary in the expert community, the Government and in the industry as to what support measures are the most effective.

Today we must review everything that has been done recently. We must see what works and what does not work as we would like it to in order to be able early next week to propose for one of the sector's enterprises, AvtoVAZ, a balanced package of effective measures to support concrete enterprises and the sector as a whole.

Let us discuss these issues today.