Transcript of the beginning of the meeting:

Vladimir Putin: What is the situation in Republic, Mr Fyodorov?

Nikolai Fyodorov: In terms of forecast figures, it is a little unexpected: by year end, we raised more revenue than was forecast in the corrected budget. Taxes on profit and personal income raised 350 million roubles more than predicted. This means that as a whole, the development of Chuvashia's economy looks as follows: Q1 was very difficult, Q2 was difficult, in Q3 the economy started to recover and the fourth quarter was even better than we predicted.

Vladimir Putin: And what is the gross regional product for the year like?

Nikolai Fyodorov: It is at approximately the same level as before. Down around 3%-4%. We do not yet have the final figure. In agriculture, we expected to see growth of 3.5%, but it was 5.2%. I think this is very important and interesting. We expected that labour productivity growth would be about 17%, but it was 26%. And wage growth in agriculture was 22%.

In our republic, 43% of the population lives in the countryside. This non-reduction in revenue, this excess raised, is considerable. Salaries are up 22%, and labour productivity is up 26.4%.

I think that you got to the heart of the matter in what you said almost six years ago, in Shemursh. Remember, you visited that very remote village in 2004 or 2005?

Vladimir Putin: We visited a school?

Nikolai Fyodorov: Yes, a school. We looked at a model of a library, met with young people in the rural community. And then the decision was made that federal policy should not only seek to preserve the Russian village, not only should it help develop agriculture, but as you envisaged it, it should ensure the systematic and sustainable development of rural territories.

So we have finished connecting local villages to gas supplies, and roads have been built. It is a one-of-a-kind project! It touched all populated areas across Chuvashia. And, of course, this created a social infrastructure beneficial for the attraction of investment to and employment in these rural areas.

Could this be why these figures in all these years have shown steady growth in agriculture? Subsidised loans totalling 7.3 billion roubles were granted to 45,100 family farms.

We are ahead of both Tatarstan and Krasnodar territories, where there are many times more farmers. Why? Because we have rolled out our gas supply networks and all the fields are accessible by road. The fact that the infrastructure is in such good condition is of course a great boon to development. This is not simply preserving the village economy in Russian villages, but is the kind of economic development called for in the 21st century.

Vladimir Putin: You had very good housing construction figures. I know that nevertheless, last year, you had some difficulties.

Nikolai Fyodorov: The figure is down 12.8% - housing construction volumes have fallen. It is essential to us both in general in terms of our development so far. But this is 0.7% square metres of housing per resident of Chuvashia, 0.7%. We maintained this figure at 0,8% for two years.

These difficulties are caused, first of all, by a sharp technical decrease in the volume of mortgage lending. But all the same, the financial crisis has had an impact. But taking into account the support... including, incidentally, the order you signed in December allocating money to us on a competitive basis from the Investment Fund towards the development of new neighbourhoods in the city of Cheboksary. Bogdanka is an old barrack-type area near the city centre. We are investing 520 million roubles from the federal budget there, and we are also attracting approximately four billion roubles for public utilities and infrastructure. And I am sure that this year we will recover this loss and return to that level of 0.8% square metres of housing per year, that is, everything will be on an even keel again.

Vladimir Putin: I know that there were issues associated with the cost of a square metre, yes?

Nikolai Fyodorov: Yes, it became more complicated because of the decrease. But I know that we are compensating for this. I'm not just saying this - I know it is the case. The calculations are in and we're compensating for any shortfall. There are new sites, including those funded by the Braverman fund {Alexander Braverman, the head of the Assistance Fund for Residential Construction Development}.

And now you have transferred several scores of hectares of land near the city centre to us. We are now building on these sites; they are very much in demand. And in a year we will have built about 70 thousand square metres, in addition.

Vladimir Putin: Is there infrastructure nearby?

Nikolai Fyodorov: It is ready. It is already connected to the gas supply.

Vladimir Putin: So this will be good housing in the city centre?

Nikolai Fyodorov: Good housing at very reasonable prices: some 10% lower than what we have available today. It will improve the situation on the housing market.

But there is one issue, Mr Putin, which is a little unusual. Our tractor-builders have asked me once again to thank you for your strong support for domestic tractor production throughout the crisis. We who live and work in Chuvashia believe Cheboksary to be the capital of tractor production, and I mean modern tractor engineering, not backward, domestic, unwanted, or even transport engineering. We have a very modern railway freight-car factory that has not yet reached design capacity.

Thanks to the allocation of the 15-billion rouble, seven-year loan, this transport factory ... Look at the trends: we had the largest decline last year ... But this money, this state aid will enable us to double demand on the Russian market for these products this year, and what is most important, it will also enable us to double exports.

Vladimir Putin: They have a range of technology: for agriculture, road building, the oil and gas industry.

Nikolai Fyodorov: This is the price of state support. We understand that it is impossible to support anything unless there is an interest in it, and it is in demand. You need to be sure that as prime minister, it seems to me, that there will be export demand, and we can compete with KAMAZ, Caterpillar, and so on.

The figures indicate that this aid will be effective. It is already having an effect.

Vladimir Putin: The decline, of course, was very large from 2008 to 2009.

A recovery of more than twice that decline is expected?

Nikolai Fyodorov: Yes. Have a look: exports have grown during the crisis, that means there are domestic demand issues. How do we provide for these? That's not so great. But the management is so good that overall this year it will be up about 90%, since the decline was almost 60%.

Vladimir Putin: Let's see.