RUSSIA, December 5 - Mikhail Mishustin: “Positive changes have taken place in virtually all areas, and they have expedited the socio-economic development of the regions and the entire country. Today, we are accomplishing close to 100 percent of our goals, on average. Our national projects prioritise our citizens and aim to improve the quality of life.”

Mikhail Mishustin’s opening remarks:

Good afternoon, colleagues,

We continue our work to achieve the national development goals set by the President. Today, our main task is to review key aspects of our mid-term activities, to review the preliminary results of the past five years and to inform the President, as part of preparations for a meeting of the Council for Strategic Development and National Projects.

First of all, we will discuss the implementation of the national projects initiated by the President. The public sees them as a common approach towards implementing our main strategic programmes. The Government closely monitors their fulfilment.

Positive changes have taken place in virtually all areas, and they have expedited the socio-economic development of the regions and the entire country. GDP growth trends also highlight this process. The GDP continues to grow, despite the current challenges.

We are fulfilling all our plans. Today, we are accomplishing close to 100 percent of our goals, on average. Our national projects prioritise our citizens and aim to improve the quality of life.

I would like to mention some statistics.

We have established or modernised about 5,500 medical facilities, including paramedic stations, outpatient clinics, and wards for treating oncology and cardiovascular cases. In all, 22 modern hospitals have opened, and we are building an additional 36 hospitals.

Regarding education, over 1,000 new schools for over 670,000 pupils have opened. About 7,000 postgraduate students have received grants for research and science and technological projects. In all, 700 laboratories, including those headed by promising young early-career researchers, have opened.

We have relocated about 600,000 people from rundown and dilapidated housing at the expense of the federal budget and regional programmes. Tens of thousands of public areas have been improved.

The economic infrastructure, including the port infrastructure, continues to be developed. We have supported small businesses. We have achieved positive results while increasing labour productivity and expanding exports, despite the unprecedented sanctions.

We have allocated substantial resources for implementing the national projects. According to the approved documents, about 21 trillion roubles’ worth of funding (from all sources) has been set aside in the past five years. This year, we channelled about 3 trillion roubles from the federal budget.

I would like to note that the national projects are very important tools, although not the only ones, for attaining our national goals, as set by the President.

I would like to recall that, one year ago, the President instructed us to focus on the following six areas: Expanding our foreign economic interaction with promising partners from friendly countries; strengthening our technological sovereignty and ensuring our financial sovereignty; priority development of the transport, utilities and social infrastructure; raising the well-being of our citizens, and protecting motherhood, childhood, and supporting families with children.

We need to focus on these six areas in our current activities. Of course, we should also focus on emerging challenges. We have already formulated ways of responding to them in the form of new projects; in some cases, we are working on these projects, including the Unmanned Aviation Systems project and a very important project called Data Economy.

I would like to emphasise the fact that the ongoing development of the national industrial base, as well as the manufacture of our own highly localised products through mega-projects, should become our top priority. This is a key aspect.

These are our efforts to achieve the national development goals. The projects of the National Welfare Fund and technological sovereignty, that I mentioned, aim to accomplish this. In addition, there are state programmes, 42 strategic initiatives and, of course, projects by companies with state capital with very serious and ambitious investment plans.

Colleagues,

Today, we are to choose our top-priority objectives in the context of the current situation, so that our activities can benefit our citizens and businesses as much as possible.