Transcript of the meeting's beginning:
Vladimir Putin: Good afternoon. Today we mark the Day for the Victims of Terrorist Attacks and other similar crimes. I am referring to the highest profile tragedies - in Beslan and the Dubrovka Theatre Centre. Let us observe a minute's silence in memory of their victims.
Thank you.
Let us begin with exchanging latest information. Mr Shoigu (Sergei Shoigu is the Emergencies Minister), your ministry has finished the relief operation at the Sayano-Shushenskaya Hydroelectric Power Plant. We expect you to report on its results.
Sergei Shoigu: Mr Prime Minister, colleagues. We started acting as soon as the disaster happened, 4:15 a.m. Moscow time on August 18. Within 24 hours, we rallied over 2,500 people and more than 200 vehicles, including 11 aircraft and 15 ships.
Meanwhile, the first efforts were being made to save survivors. We have saved 14 people, found 73 bodies, but two people remain unaccounted for... In other words, we have not found them or their bodies.
We have cleared and removed 5,800 cubic metres of debris, pumped out over 300,000 cubic metres of water, erected 9,680 metres of shoreline sealing, and collected over 1,115 metric tonnes of oil and water. Aircraft have made 398 flights to disperse 700 tonnes of absorbents over an area of over 1,000 square kilometres.
We finished the bulk of operations by August 25. The facility has been turned over to the Ministry of Energy, which will rebuild it. The bulk of the Emergency Ministry's relief team has been withdrawn to their permanent deployment bases. Only one team is still in place - 63 people and 10 machines necessary for reconstruction and search for the two missing persons.
We have drawn from state reserves and the reserves of the Emergencies Ministry, as well as the reserves of the Prime Minister. I therefore ask you to issue instructions to draft a government resolution on the replenishment of these reserves. Thank you.
Vladimir Putin: Good. What about the environmental situation on the Yenisei and in the adjacent areas?
Sergei Shoigu: The Ministry of Healthcare and Social Development, the Ministry of Natural Resources and the Federal Service for Supervision of Environment, Technology and Nuclear Management (Rostekhnadzor) have established environmental monitoring posts at all water supply facilities downstream from the Sayano-Shushenskaya power plant.
All laboratories collected water samples every three hours. This allowed us to prevent serious deterioration in the quality of drinking water and to minimise damage to the environment. The teams that collected oil spills in the plant, at the Mainskaya Hydroelectric Power Plant and downstream up to Abakan did a good job. In other words, we erected five tiers of shoreline sealing, which allowed us to collect as much of the spill as was possible.
I would like to commend the highly professional work of Transneft teams, which have been equipped with sufficient means for relief work following such accidents.
Vladimir Putin: Good. Mr Kudrin (Alexei Kudrin, Minister of Finance), please report on the transfer of funds for the compensation payments to the relatives of the victims and missing persons.
Alexei Kudrin: Mr Putin, the Government Resolution of August 22 stipulates one-time financial assistance to the families affected by the accident. It has been stipulated that budget funds will be allocated for one-time payments to the families of the victims and missing persons in the amount of 1 million roubles per victim or missing person, as well as one-time payments to the persons injured in the accident - 100,000 roubles per person.
The Government of Khakassia submitted the relevant documents by the September 1 deadline. They have submitted the documents and it took us two days to register them. As of today, the funds stipulated for the payment of one-time financial compensation to the families of the victims and missing persons - 75 million roubles - have been transferred to the Government of Khakassia. We continue to issue documents in accordance with the list of people injured in the accident, at the same time finalising the list jointly with the Government of Khakassia.
Vladimir Putin: Good.
The International Monetary Fund has decided - this is a different subject - to allow IMF member countries to receive favourable loans for extended terms. Please, tell our colleagues about this decision and our possible response to it.
What do you and the Central Bank of Russia think we should do? Should we accept the offer or not?
Alexei Kudrin: Mr Putin, a package of anti-crisis measures was approved at the London summit of the G20 leaders in April. These measures primarily stipulate the provision to countries of additional financial resources for fighting the crisis, and above all for maintaining the stability of exchange rates and their payments balances.
One of these measures is a special allocation of IMF's special unit of account, SDR, in the amount of SDR 250 billion, which is slightly more in dollar terms - I will speak about this later. A relevant allocation has been provided to all IMF member countries in proportion to their existing quotas in the Fund.
Therefore, last Friday Russia was granted the right to use 4.407 billion SDR, which amounts to $6.870 million...
Vladimir Putin: Billion...
Alexei Kudrin: Yes, $6.870 billion, which are being transferred as Russia's reserve in the IMF. Russia can use this right to get a favourable long-term loan, if it needs these funds.
In addition, I would like to say that one more decision is being considered. The Fourth Amendment to the IMF Articles of Agreement providing for a special one-time allocation of SDRs will enter into force. It stipulates that the countries that have joined the IMF but did not participate in its previous issue, above all the issue of SDRs, will get a share in one more allocation. According to it, Russia may get an additional right to $1.970 billion worth of loans.
Vladimir Putin: Do we need the money?
Alexei Kudrin: Aggregately, these two decisions will give Russia the right to take out $8.840 billion in loans. It is our reserve position in case of a crisis or a situation when we will need to maintain the stability of our payments balance.
Vladimir Putin: Mr Kudrin, did you hear me? Do we need the money or not?
Alexei Kudrin: I was just going to say that, taking into account the fact that Russia has sufficient gold and foreign currency reserves and market mechanisms for financing its deficit, and is pursuing a policy of balancing its budget and gradually reducing the budget deficit, and having consulted the Ministry of Economic Development and the Central Bank, we have come to the conclusion that we will not need to use our reserve SDR position in the near future.
We understand that mostly countries in a critical situation will use this position. Russia is not in a critical situation. We are implementing an approved package of anti-crisis measures. We have at our disposal the necessary market mechanisms for forming the budget and balancing it. In our opinion, there is no need to use these resources.
Vladimir Putin: So, we have agreed that we will not use these resources. But neither will we act as a donor country yet.
Alexei Kudrin: That's right, Mr Prime Minister. This weekend we plan to attend the G20 meeting of finance ministers in London. They will discuss, inter alia, which countries can finance developing countries and the countries whose situation is complicated - in return for Special Drawing Rights (SDR).
Russia will so far not act as a financing donor within the SDR programme because we are rendering considerable assistance in other spheres and forms, which we have pledged to provide. In particular, we have pledged to provide resources to the IMF, placing $10 billion worth of our gold and currency reserves, as well as to make our contribution to the anti-crisis fund of the EurAsEC.
In other words, we will so far use predominantly these methods and forms of providing assistance to the countries that need additional resources during the crisis.
Vladimir Putin: I would like to ask you to draw the attention of the IMF leadership to the importance of supporting some of our CIS partners.
Alexei Kudrin: Mr Putin, support to CIS countries and the issue of loans to them is a question we plan to highlight during discussions at the IMF. We support the idea of IMF loans for Ukraine, Belarus, Armenia and other CIS countries. Russia's representative on the IMF board always takes part in voting and always votes for issuing these loans to these countries. We will continue working to ensure that the IMF resources and our interaction with the Fund are used to provide assistance to the countries with which we have closest relations, partner relations, above all in our region.
Vladimir Putin: Thank you. Mr Ivanov, I you personally followed the progress on the M58 Chita-Khabarovsk highway construction. Could you tell us about the ongoing work on this project?
Sergei Ivanov: During a tour of Eastern Siberia early last week I inspected a stretch of the Amur highway, a 2,100-kilometre long federal highway, whose construction started in 1978.
In the first 20 years of construction, up to 1998, only 25% of the project was completed. Following your directive, the work resumed in 2002.
I visited the Khabarovsk Territory a year ago, and have recently been to the Chita Region. This 2,100 kilometre long highway will connect Chita with Khabarovsk, crossing four scarcely populated regions. This highway lies in taiga and crosses bald mountain peaks.
This year I inspected a section of this road to authorise its opening. It is a hard asphalt and concrete surface route. I should say that the jobs are being carried out very actively. Suffice it to say that there are five asphalt and concrete plants adjacent to this 2,100-kilometre long highway. The construction of all the 322 bridges on the highway has been completed. This year another 705-kilometre hard surface stretch of this highway will pass inspection before opening. The builders pledged to finish this highway's construction next September. The remaining 630-kilometre route will be commissioned in September 2010.
I went for a drive along the new road and I can say I enjoyed it: the surface quality was excellent. The speed limit is 100 kmh. The road is even and smooth. When finished, this highway will be comparable to the Trans-Siberian Railway and the Baikal Amur Mainline in terms of resource capacity.
By the way, the total cost of the construction, calculated starting from 1978, is estimated at 200 billion roubles. It's the first time in history that a highway will connect Russia's West with the East.
In addition, I believe that this new highway will revitalise economic activity in those scarcely populated regions since it will be necessary to create an infrastructure to service this major highway, including camp sites, petrol stations, motels, and rest areas. Under new legislation, lorry drivers are not allowed to work more than eight hours a day. All in all, I think the highway will breathe life into this region's economy, which will promote the development of federalism and the economy of the Russian Far East.
Vladimir Putin: Will the required funds be allocated in full for the next year construction stage?
Sergei Ivanov: As for funding, this year the project is being funded in full. I talked with builders and foremen, and I didn't hear anyone complain about the lack of funds. This year a total of 15 billion roubles will be allotted for this project, with another 10 billion roubles planned to be earmarked next year to complete the construction.
Vladimir Putin: Good.
Sergei Ivanov: The contractors would like to invite you to the opening ceremony next year.
Vladimir Putin: Good. Thank you.
Mr Zubkov, this year the fisheries industry has been on the rise, showing record yield figures. On the other hand, there are certain problems related to logistics, transportation and shipping the required volumes of fish products to the European part of Russia. You have been dealing with this issue. Could you tell us about it, please?
Viktor Zubkov: It's true that in the past two or three weeks certain problems emerged with regard to shipping fish and fish products from the Far East, specifically from Vladivostok, Kamchatka and Sakhalin, to other regions. These problems are connected with the seasonal factor.
This year the volume of fished salmon totalled 474 tonnes, which is the absolute record since 1908, when the volume of derived fished resources started to be recorded. It's 50% times more than last year. These results were achieved thanks to the government-taken measures to ensure fish supplies to the Russian coast. Also, other government resolutions complementing the fisheries law took effect. So, such a record yield was anticipated.
Moreover, over half a million tonnes of fish products are expected to be derived this fishing season. There were some problems connected with the shortage of railway cars and interruptions in unloading vessels and shipping fish products, but these problems have been resolved. Trains equipped with refrigerators to transport fish products started operating in high-speed mode; the appreciation rate was abolished; the process of unloading fish directly from the vessel to the train is now up and running.
Fish product distribution remains a challenge. As a matter of fact, the supply exceeds the demand. Today I chaired a meeting on this issue to consider measures to promptly respond to such seasonal challenges, as well as to elaborate the main approaches to address this problem comprehensively.
What measures are being introduced? Russian Railways has guaranteed the required number of refrigerator cars and assured us that the fish products will be shipped on time.
As for sales, it is necessary to specify the fish product demand rate in each region, including in multi-million cities. The Ministry of Industry and Trade received a corresponding directive today. Cooperative trade, including fairs and weekend markets, needs developing too.
We have also agreed on some long-term measures, including the use of maritime transport to ship fish, specifically to the European part of Russia, possibly to St Petersburg; a transition to direct contracts signed between fish product suppliers and regional trade outlets.
At the next meeting of the Commission for the Development of the Fisheries Industry we are going to discuss these issues with businessmen, representatives of distribution chains and fishermen. We are going to look at the entire chain, from fishermen to consumers, to understand what needs to be done to ensure that Russian fish products are supplied at affordable prices, smoothing over seasonal peaks.
The practical implementation of a part of these measures is the joint responsibility of the state and businesses. I don't rule out that we'll have to consider and apply customs tariffs regulation measures, which in my opinion will allow for limiting the import of foreign fish products at a time of great yields like this year's catch in the Far East.
Vladimir Putin: Good. Let's talk a little bit about the agenda.
Today we will discuss the bill outlining technical regulations for wheeled motor vehicle safety. It will affect motor vehicle technology, including all vehicles we use for everyday and industrial purposes, all motor transport, all vehicles used for passenger and freight transportation. It will also affect all domestically produced vehicles and everything we import from abroad.
As you know, the automotive industry ended up being one of the sectors hit the hardest by the economic crisis. Sales of new cars dropped significantly not only in Russia, but all over the world. Only now have markets in individual countries started to recover.
That being said, we see that consumers primarily prefer modern automobiles and reject outdated models.
Therefore, it is obvious that the revival of the sector and a steady increase in production are possible only with new technology, which entails the mass production of safer, more comfortable, more economical and more environmentally friendly cars.
At the same time, of course the transition to modern standards must be gradual. Russian auto plants must have enough time to upgrade their manufacturing capabilities and technology. And of course consumers have to be ready for this.
Regarding imports, as I've already said many times, we will strive to have all import vehicles fully meet Russian standards. The new set of technical regulations is based on these specific principles, and I hope that its coming into effect will allow, among other things, improved traffic safety on our roads.
At our meeting today, we must also examine how the federal budget for the first half of this year is being implemented. Let me remind you that a significant amount of money - 2.2 trillion roubles - has been allocated for the anti-crisis programme, and half of these funds will be disbursed directly from the federal budget. In total, budgetary spending in 2009 will reach 9.7 trillion roubles.
And it is clear that the prospects for economic recovery depend on how promptly and efficiently these funds are distributed and used in the economy.
In addition, today the budget plays a significant role in supporting the public's income levels.
Therefore, at today's meeting we will not only discuss the Finance Ministry's report on how the budget has been implemented over the first half of this year, but we will also, as we agreed, hear explanations from agencies that have fallen behind or been irregular in their budgetary spending, or have been delaying signing contracts, reaching settlements with suppliers, and implementing federal programmes.
Our task is to identify the reasons for failures of this type and improve the situation fundamentally and quickly. By this I mean not the last days of December, but over the rest of the year.
Let's get down to work.