Transcript of the beginning of the meeting:
Vladimir Putin: Mr Basargin, I have signed the Government resolutions on providing subsidies to the regions in various areas, including medicine and other areas. Please report on your readiness to implement the resolutions.
Viktor Basargin: Currently, any assistance provided by the federal government is very much in demand in the regions. The assistance we are discussing will be particularly appreciated, considering that it will be provided to those facilities that were not included in various federal targeted programmemes. As far as the latter, the Ministry of Regional Development alone will provide 500 billion roubles from the federal budget to the regions. The funds will be allocated over the next several years; this year about 110 billion roubles will be allocated.
Last year, we conducted an inventory and found out that about 700 unfinished facilities required financing. These facilities are near completion, many of them in rural areas. They are very much anticipated by the regions.
Vladimir Putin: You are speaking about medical facilities, correct?
Viktor Basargin: That is correct, about medical facilities. The 700 facilities where construction has been finished and where federal funds were provided can be broken down as follows: medical facilities make up 10%; education facilities - 8%; the rest are either transport infrastructure facilities or engineering infrastructure facilities. These facilities are highly anticipated. Some of the medical facilities, specifically the tuberculosis hospital at the Kamchatka Territory, the one that the Governor constantly reminded about, if you recall, must be completed, as tuberculosis cases are rather high.
Vladimir Putin: In this case, you are speaking about capital construction subsidies in healthcare amounting to 2.2 billion roubles, correct?
Viktor Basargin: Yes.
Vladimir Putin: Good. What about the training of managerial personnel?
Viktor Basargin: We do have a federal programmeme in that area, as well. Under the programmeme, we are training about 50,000 specialists in the regions for the national economy. The programmeme is based on co-financing by the region, the federal Government, and the ordering organisation. It was very difficult to coordinate these trilateral agreements. This also involves subsidies to the regions. This year about 4,800 specialists will be trained. We will provide over 8 million roubles for this programme. The programme is aimed at training qualified specialists and is very much in demand by the regions and the federal government.
Vladimir Putin: For the construction, refurbishing, and capital reconstruction of facilities, we will be increasing advance payments, right?
Viktor Basargin: That is correct. You probably remember the situation with the bridge construction across the Eastern Bosphorus to the Island of Russky. We had to make an exception and provide advance financing for overly expensive facilities or for complicated equipment orders. Advance payment is necessary. Previously, the advance payment level was established at 30% of the annual financing level. All this affects the cost appreciation. We have now resolved this issue.
Vladimir Putin: One of the goals is precisely to limit this appreciation.
Viktor Basargin: Exactly. We believe that if advance payment is provided without credit resources, at the established level for example, we would be able to cut the project cost by 7% annually.
Vladimir Putin: You mean through saving on interest rate payments, right?
Viktor Basargin: Yes.
Vladimir Putin: Very good.