Vladimir Putin's opening address:

Good afternoon,

Today we will discuss providing housing for military servicemen.

The Government has assumed very tough commitments in this area and established specific deadlines. In my speech at the United Russia congress, I reaffirmed that all our plans must be fulfilled in full measure.

In 2009-2010 we will provide 90,000 apartments exclusively for the men and women serving in our armed forces, and we will thus solve the problem. We will also provide housing for all servicemen retiring in 2010 and all servicemen who had waited for it to be resolved before.

At the same time I would like to discuss some issues that require more attention or additional solutions.

First, I would like you to verify all the lists of warrant and high-ranking officers who are eligible for housing. There should be no mistakes. Nobody should be forgotten. Mistakes considered within the margin of error or minor mishaps according to departmental standards can be a huge blow to the morale of the people concerned. Let me speak clearly: Such negligence may discredit this big and important effort.

Second, the Defence Ministry and the Regional Development Ministry have been instructed to guarantee that the Government Housing Certificates for 2010 be issued in the first half of the next year. I ask you to do this without any further delay. Today, I would like you to report back on this work.

Third, we are carrying out a number of comprehensive projects for building housing for military personnel in many regions, including here in St Petersburg, as well as in the Moscow Region, the Kaliningrad Region, the Krasnodar Territory, the Stavropol Territory and the Primorye Territory.

A week ago I instructed the Government to form several inter-departmental groups that would visit military housing construction sites in all these regions to make sure that construction was going according to schedule, that there were no problems and so on. Today I would like to hear about the results of these inspections.

Needless to say, it is not enough just to build residential buildings. There must also be municipal infrastructure, kindergartens, outpatient clinics and schools.

This is the responsibility of the regional and local authorities. I have deliberately invited regional leaders in order to hear their accounts on what is being done and discuss any problems that have come up. And I'm sure problems have come up.

In turn, we understand that finding the money to resolve all these issues is not an easy task for the regions in the current situation. Therefore, as you know, we have decided to grant regions and other territories additional subsidies of 13 billion roubles to build the infrastructure for the new military housing construction.

In addition, the Defence Ministry will expedite the process of transferring land to the municipal governments for the construction of schools, hospitals, etc. However, I would like the heads of territories and local self-government bodies to start planning for the required facilities without waiting for the formal decisions. We all understand very well that if we don't do this now, there may be no time left in 2010.

The Regional Development Ministry and the other departments involved should work together on this effort, provide recommendations and follow up on the results.

Fourth, in 2010 we will finish the process of giving out apartments to the men and women who serve in the armed forces or are getting ready to retire. By this I mean that we will not forget those who are planning to retire in 2011 and 2012. However, we have yet another category of servicemen whom we shouldn't forget about, either.

I am talking about servicemen who retired in the 1990s or the early 2000s without receiving apartments. Now they are on the municipal housing register, and the waiting time is very long. But these people are not to blame for the fact that in the past the state simply lacked the resources to fulfil its commitments to them. And the commitments have been made and must be honoured.

We should return to this issue today. I would like you to work on this issue thoroughly - when we will be able to provide housing for these retired servicemen, and also to check and double check all waiting lists. I believe we should be able to resolve this problem completely before the end of 2012. Therefore, we must take everything into account, calculate how much money we will need and adjust the budget accordingly.

Now a few words on the future of housing construction. A series of initiatives has been announced on this issue. I am referring primarily to the allocation of significant funds, specifically some 250 billion roubles, to promote affordable mortgages and to reduce interest rates on mortgage loans.

I said at the United Russia congress that the interest rate must fall to 10-11%, although we'll certainly seek an even lower rate of 7% or 6% in the near future. Next year we must ensure that the interest rate falls to at least 10-11%.

We have extended the Housing and Utilities Fund's projects for one more year. We are now focusing on launching a programme for the massive construction of cheap and comfortable housing, including low-rise housing.

To make these programmes truly effective, it is necessary to finish preparing master blueprints and other documents on land use planning.

In many places these blueprints haven't been changed for 20 years or more, and don't take into account contemporary approaches to constructing housing and creating an urban environment that people would want to live in. This must be done as soon as possible to ensure that the Housing federal targeted programme is as effective as possible from the very outset and continues without delays.

Finally, I would like to conclude with the issue I started with, the main issue on today's agenda. I am referring to housing for servicemen.

There are currently two ways for a serviceman to acquire housing. The first one is to acquire permanent housing directly. The second one is to take advantage of the mortgage programme, which some servicemen have done. They haven't moved into their new flats yet since this requires a certain amount of time and certain financial resources. It simply takes time.

We just looked at the housing the Ministry of Defence has bought, and this is what occurred to me: There is a demographic programme in place to support families with two or more children. I would like to repeat that there are two ways for servicemen to acquire housing, namely by receiving it directly or by taking out a mortgage.

I think we could extend support to military families with two or more children. This is how I see it.

Housing is one of the most acute problems for young families. And so within the framework of the permanent housing allocation programme we could introduce a kind of housing bonus for families with two or more children that would provide them additional square meters of living space. In essence, this would simply increase the amount of floor space such families would receive. A family currently receives 18 square metres for each member. We could add several square meters as a housing bonus for the birth of the second child and consecutive children.

And as far as the servicemen who have taken advantage of the mortgage programme, let me remind you that the terms for these mortgages are determined by the state. Each military family receives some 56 square metres. This is where bonuses must be introduced. The state must take responsibility for paying for the additional square meters for those families in which a second child, or a third or a fourth, is born.

I ask my colleagues to prepare appropriate proposals and estimate how much would need to be spent on this housing bonus, and how soon it could be introduced. I think we could use the principles for the maternity capital programme as the basis for our calculations.

Let's get down to business.