RUSSIA, April 11 - Mikhail Mishustin: “Today we will discuss the technological development concept for the next eight years. It offers completely new approaches in this area.”

Mikhail Mishustin’s opening remarks:

Colleagues, good afternoon.

Strengthening technological sovereignty is one of the key objectives that the President has outlined. I spoke about this in detail during my Report to the State Duma.

Last year, an active restructuring of logistics and cooperation chains began. By promptly taking measures, we prevented a massive shortage of materials, components and equipment.

In order to keep our key industries operating stably, we must largely ensure our independence in creating technologies, innovations and engineering solutions, as well as master the production of almost all essential products quickly.

This work must be carried out with our own resources and, most importantly, our own expertise. Therefore, we have to strengthen the production, personnel and scientific potential of Russia, and in fact, raise it to a completely new level.

We will build up industrial capacities, launch the necessary production facilities on a large scale, and open high-tech enterprises; actively develop key industries, such as machine building, the chemical industry, energy, aircraft manufacturing, shipbuilding, agrotechnology and biotechnology; and pursue leadership in artificial intelligence, robotics, unmanned systems and other innovative areas.

It is also necessary to continue reviving the national engineering school and to not forget about its traditions, as well as to launch additional educational programmes. In his Address to the Federal Assembly, the President spoke about the importance of training skilled personnel to ensure the country’s technological sovereignty.

At the same time, we have to build a training system and also literally accompany each young specialist to a specific enterprise and interest him or her in finding a job related to his or her education. And it is necessary to offer such conditions so that a person can work for many years at one organisation, gaining experience and skills, and ultimately bringing great benefits not only to a particular company, but to society as a whole.

At a recent meeting, the President pointed out the need to urgently introduce new measures to support industry, giving priority to revitalising sectors affected by the sanctions.

It is necessary to develop long-term systemic solutions in order to stimulate business activity as much as possible, increase the investment attractiveness of projects and, most importantly, give an impetus to the development of so-called end-to-end technologies, which have a significant impact on all sectors of our economy.

When visiting various enterprises in the regions and getting acquainted with their proposals and initiatives, I can see that they often lack funding for their implementation. Almost all representatives of industrial enterprises speak about it. Small technology companies as well as school and student startups also need help. They have a lot of useful ideas that need to be improved and put into practice. Of course, we will provide such support.

At the same time, decisions at the local level are of great importance, including the provision of land plots for a small fee to create new production facilities. Here I would ask the heads of Russian regions to work out all possible measures for the accelerated development of industry in their regions.

Colleagues,

Today we will discuss the technological development concept for the next eight years. It offers completely new approaches in this area. We will also discuss the first results attained in various sectors. Moreover, there are already some successful examples of achieving technological sovereignty. This is very positive experience. It is important to analyse it in detail and draw the appropriate conclusions, including when setting priorities for the current year.