Dmitry Medvedev took part in the plenary session of the 10th Krasnoyarsk Economic Forum "Russia: Map of Change"
Transcript:
Medvedev: Once again good day to everyone! Hi! I hope that the Muscovites have woken up. I remember when I spoke here, it was almost five years ago. This place is very special for me. The forum started a little earlier, and a huge number of visitors from Moscow sat with half-closed eyes. This time the organizers of the forum were more humane, so I hope that we will be able to discuss our current life and plans for the future.
Indeed, five years ago, I spoke here with a specific policy statement formulating my vision of the coming years and introduced the concept of the so-called four "I’s": institutions, infrastructure, innovation, investment. Then add to this the fifth "I" - intelligence. I think that in general, these five "I’s" have not lost their relevance since then. Today, we can talk about what has been done over the years and what has not been done, what we did and what did not work. But the most important thing is that it is necessary to speak about how we move forward.
Two weeks ago, I approved the "Guidelines for the Government until 2018." The work will be carried out and is already underway in a new format, the format of the so-called government programs. Certain goal benchmarks and resources needed to achieve these benchmarks were determined. These are programs of development and industry, and agriculture, modernization of education, health, environmental security, and many other programs. I do not want to waste time repeating what is obvious for the government and the business community, present here, and for experts. Conclusions about the factors that now dominate the world economy, talk about instability, uncertainty - you all know this perfectly well.
But what is clear is that a return to the so-called pre-crisis growth model, at least in our country, probably in many other countries, is no longer possible. We must look for a new model. In our society a demand has developed, one that is very stable, and I must be honest, a fair demand, for a different quality of life in the broadest sense of the word, on a different quality of education, health, all social spheres. The authorities cannot ignore this. And here the usual budgetary investment is necessary. All this I said not long ago in Moscow at the Gaidar Forum, then later at Davos at the appropriate forum and then at an expanded cabinet meeting. I will not repeat myself on this subject, but I will only say that it is crucial: this call could not arise in an underdeveloped and impoverished state. Let's say, 15 years ago we could not call for such a change in our society because we were still too weak. This demand testifies to the growth and well-being of people and promoting the country’s progress, but to answer it, you need to ensure sustainable development and achieve an economic growth rate of at least 5% per year. It is an extremely complicated task. We are always criticized for this ambitious goal, but my colleagues and I are confident that it can be solved. Moreover, if we do not solve this task, we cannot do everything we have agreed to do. Of course, we must engage in improving the efficiency of our economy as a whole, improving governance, and we should take advantage of a very important resource - our civil society.
Now for the specific tasks. The first task, unfortunately for us is a constant, but nevertheless it is still the first - bold steps to improve the investment climate. As is known, the investment climate is defined by a range of factors. The main measure of the state of the business climate in the country is how businesses themselves feel. However business perceives the climate, that is what the climate is. Not all sorts of indicators, not ratings and spells from the authorities, but how the businesses themselves feel. I think it is absolutely obvious. Assessments by investors of how consistent and predictable government policies are, decisions by regulators, law enforcement actions, the efficiency of the judicial system, the effectiveness of the supervisory and control services, the performance of companies which depend on the development of business in the country as a whole, including infrastructure companies - it all affects how business and investment decisions are conducted. It is no accident that a year ago the discussion of the national entrepreneurial initiative started here in Krasnoyarsk. In fact, business itself has formulated an agenda for the government. Road maps for connections to the grid, obtaining building permits, customs matters, export promotion, competition and registering property - these road maps are already in operation. The goals are accompanied by indicators on how to measure their achievement. That is, we have a management tool. Yes, of course, it is not perfect, but nevertheless the basis of this mechanism is real public demand, and it generally works.
Not everything is going smoothly. We need to find a consensus between the different forces in approving road maps, because for obvious reasons, very often government agencies and businesses differ in their opinions, and the task of departments, the task of the government, is to combine these approaches. Second, there are questions to implementing road maps, the timetables of implementation and the effects of the changes.
The so-called second wave of these road maps is on the way. They concern business registration procedures, access of small and medium-sized businesses to procurement by companies with state participation, enhancing the quality of the regulatory environment and improving tax registration. All of these maps, I’ll say it again, are on the way. It is extremely important that the responsibility for concrete results does not get blurred between different structures. Practices need to be changed, not only departmental records. Ongoing monitoring is also necessary, what is done, how it is done in what time frame it all happens. Monitoring in any event will take place constantly, at that - and I would also like to stress this specifically - it should take place by business surveys, because this is the primary indicator of what we do. All that is promised must be fulfilled.
And one more ambitious idea - to enter the twenty most business-enabling economies by 2018. This goal also has not been canceled. To do this we need to advance in all directions, improving our performance in the different components of the business climate, and this can be done, because a number of areas, you know, we advanced quite far, by 40 to 50 positions in just a single year. So these problems can be solved. And yet it is very important to be able to present ourselves well, because the perception of Russia - not our perception, the perception, say, from abroad – is often based on false theses and phantom perceptions of the Soviet economy and the Soviet political system, we also know this well.
Second. In order to compete globally and to build an innovative economy, it is necessary to change our approach to education in the system of competences. Today, almost all industries face the problem of personnel. Businesses have to invest in retraining already trained professionals, and many graduates cannot find jobs in their field. We need to learn from the best of the best, not forgetting, of course, about our traditions, but nonetheless introduce new forms of education, new forms of training for engineers, managers, training those who will create a competitive environment, competing in, of course, both the Russian market and the foreign market. Employers and professional societies should be involved in shaping demands for the requirements of knowledge. We talked about this yesterday, when I held consultations with two of our board of trustees of the first federal universities that were created five years ago, even a little more - the Siberian Federal University and the Southern Federal University. It is important that business does not go away from education. Now, by the way, this understanding is held by, in my opinion, almost any modern businessman. I believe that the leaders of our IT-market pay particular attention to this area. This is true. Working with schools, creating basic departments, even entire disciplines are developed, not only in Moscow and St. Petersburg, but also in other cities, which is especially important. These examples should become normal practice not only for the IT-business, but also in general for the business as a whole. I hope that as a result of discussions, exchange of experiences on the forum will give rise to exciting ideas. Colleagues from the Strategic Initiatives Agency will consider them in the road map for the creation of a national system of competences and qualifications.
Third. This is the consistent creation of modern infrastructure, a critical thing for our country. It is particularly acute, everybody understands this while in Siberia. But first, transportation. The goal is clear. It is to increase connectivity, to improve the accessibility and development of international transport corridors, increasing the speed of delivery of passengers and freight, to identify and eliminate bottlenecks, to use the reserve to increase capacity on roads and railways. Levels of transport mobility should be increased to 2018 by 40%, while the volume export of transport services by 1.8 times. It is obvious that in this, the biggest and longest country in the world, the development of regional and local aviation is of fundamental importance. I conducted several meetings in recent years on this topic. At the federal level a number of decisions have been made, and a pilot project has been implemented in the Volga Federal District. Further actions will be aimed at expanding route networks and reducing the cost of air travel, including through the creation of appropriate conditions for low-cost air carriers. This is very important given the fact that, once again, our country is truly unique in this sense.
Regarding energy infrastructure. Siberia has great potential. It is said too often, but it is true. In the Krasnoyarsk region, the Vankor oil and gas field, which serves as a resource base for the Eastern Siberia - Pacific Ocean pipeline, is working at full power output. Large gas production centers have appeared in the Irkutsk region at Kovykta, and in Yakutia, based in the Chayandinskoye field. All of this should give additional impetus to the growth of the regional gas supply and refining industries. Projects for development of the Arctic shelf will play a strategic role in the production of hydrocarbons. For all of these projects a system of tax benefits is fundamentally important, which this year will be fixed on a long term basis. We will do it.
Despite the dominant role of hydropower in Siberia, there is still a significant resource for its further development. The volume of hydro power potential of Siberia exceeds all existing power plants in the region. Last year the Boguchan hydropower plant - one of the largest in Russia - was put into the first stage of operation. This year, the station is expected to reach full capacity. Inter-regional relations should be strengthened, including the confluence of Siberia and the Urals, and in the future, Siberia and the Far East. This will improve the efficiency of the Unified National Power Grid created under the coordination of the management company Russian Network.
Infrastructure projects require huge investments. A huge investment! And we all know that money from the budget cannot do it all. We must leverage the potential of public-private partnerships to create the conditions to attract long-term funds. This, in particular, will double the volume of road construction in the next 10 years.
We are completing the preparation of amendments to the regulatory framework that will provide for the possibility of funding the creation of infrastructure at the expense of investors. Their subsequent costs will be met with funds from the budget generated as a result of additional tax revenue coming from such projects. This is the so-called TIF mechanism (Tax Increment Financing, the financing of public investment projects using the growth of local tax revenues). For this we can use tools such as the Investment Fund of the Russian Federation.
Also, the government has submitted a draft federal law that covers the basics of public-private partnerships in the regions of the Russian Federation and municipalities, and it sets the legal and organizational conditions for attracting private investment entities of the economy.
A decision was made to expand possibilities for development institutions, as well as in the use of resources for investment of pension funds - of course, while ensuring the safety of pension savings, we cannot go without this. An essential criterion is the return on such projects. It is understood that these infrastructure projects take a very long time, 15 and 20 years, and sometimes more, but today we can offer a normative and methodological plan that will enable an optimal distribution of risks between the government, investor, builder and operator of infrastructure.
Fourth. We have to create in the domestic market a stable and long-term demand for invention and smart technology. Just over a year ago, in December 2011, the “Strategy of innovative development of Russia until 2020" was approved. As a result of cooperation between government, businesses and education, the proportion of enterprises that carry out technological innovation should rise to 25%, and in some sectors up to 40% by 2020.
The main elements of a system to promote new developments - from concept to production - has already been built. At its core are development institutions and legislation that is intended to make more comfortable conditions for doing business in innovation. This is deregulation and removal of bureaucratic restrictions in tax law and insurance risks. But ahead of us there is still much work to do on this issue, and I would like to place a special emphasis on this.
What else is important? Sixty major state-owned companies have formed a program for innovation development. From 2011 - 2013 their funding for these programs was very significant for our country, about 3 trillion rubles. And these companies provide about one-third of Russia's industrial production, more than 20% of the gross domestic product. This figure is very serious. I hope all of these indicators are met. The main thing is that these funds do not disappear, are not left in the sand, but that they going into business.
To get the most out of this investment through public-private partnerships, there are 32 technology platforms. It is necessary to concentrate resources around breakthrough projects in areas such as information and communications technology, aerospace, nuclear and radiation technologies, biotechnology, of course, energy, electronics and mechanical engineering. For example, in the framework of the technological platform, the "deep processing of hydrocarbon resources" project has begun development of industrial-scale processing of bitumen as alternative sources of oil and preparations are underway for the construction of the first plant for the conversion of the gas, which is burned in the outer wells.
State Corporation Rosatom will hold a large-scale modernization of the sector and form a strategy for technological leadership in energy and non-energy markets. The task of the state corporation as a whole is to join the world's twenty most innovative companies. As I have already mentioned, a network of institutions for commercialization of research has been formed. I mean, of course, Vneshekonombank, RUSNANO, the Russian Venture Company, the Foundation for Assistance to Small Innovative Enterprises in the scientific and technical field and a number of new institutions.
A separate area is support for university research and young researchers and the creation of institutes of higher education for small innovative enterprises. Yesterday I was told that in the so-called innovation zone of the Siberian Federal University there are about 40 small businesses, but this is not so much, this is not the limit. This is the direction in which we can develop. We need more openness of universities and laboratories, their willingness to invite scholars and teachers from all over the world, to not be shy and to not be afraid of it, to not be afraid of competition, which often happens in the activities of our universities, and to apply international evaluation criteria. I think it makes sense for all the major universities of the country to build an open structure of research in the fields of critical technologies for which scientists can travel here. Again, there is nothing to be ashamed of. Self-reliance is not our way of development, we have to borrow all the good work that is in the world, to become an open country, and I also include inter-university communication.
Total funding of public research funds should reach 25 billion rubles by 2018. By the way, a few years ago when we started talking about the need for innovation centers around the country, including a project such as Skolkovo, many of us did not believe in it, thought that nothing would come from it. However, Skolkovo now has about 800 participants, including companies from 44 regions of Russia, 49 accredited venture capital funds - both Russian and foreign. An important component of success is the high interest of large companies in the project. At the moment, 24 corporations are willing to invest about 30 billion rubles in the creation of R & D-centers at this international innovation center, and 16 of them are international companies. Together with MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) we have established an institute of science and technology. I would also like to stress that, of course that Skolkovo is fundamental, but only one of the points of growth. I just wanted to say that it is very important that innovative activity is distributed throughout our territories, and did not end with Moscow, St. Petersburg or some kind of traditional centers. We have Tomsk, we have Novosibirsk, we have Kazan, and finally we have the Krasnoyarsk region, where we are now, which was one of the founders of the Association of Innovative Regions of Russia. I believe that, by itself, this association is a good thing, a good initiative. It is crucial to analyze and disseminate international experience and share our regional practices. Again, we proceed from the assumption that only the large-scale introduction of innovative technologies will provide the required rate of growth and will change the social sphere, will allow for a structural modernization of industries that are related to human capital.
Fifth, I'd like to say that the state should be open (now it seems everyone understands this), but not only open, but also convenient and understandable to the people. It is about good governance. Without it (and, incidentally, as everyone present agrees, I hope), we cannot move forward. In the near future we will have to make some concrete steps. What are these steps? First, the extension of open data on the activities of government bodies at all levels. This is the implementation of a national plan of action for implementing the mechanisms of open government. This is permanent civilian control of public procurement and investment. I'm in this sense is very grateful to the Expert Council for the Government, which is working quite actively. I am confident that there are similar bodies of experts in all regions, and it is necessary to actively consider their suggestions. It is important to analyze not only draft laws and government programs, but also to monitor enforcement, based on the opinion of people who represent different social groups that represent professional societies that represent different regions.
In general, the system of Open Government, of course, is not a panacea for all ills; sometimes it is somehow assigned this nonexistent function, but nevertheless it is consistently gaining momentum. And in order for this system to develop, we also need to learn one simple thing: this government can be opened only if it is formed by everyone - not one person, not a separate agency, but the whole corporation of public servants. But the initiatives of the state are few, we need effective communication and collaboration with civil society and non-governmental organizations. As was fairly noted recently, the next step after being open is understanding what we are doing. People need to understand what decisions we make, and for what they are accepted. Only in this case we can expect efficiency in the performance of these decisions.
Dear colleagues! What I have listed is certainly not a complete list of actions that we need to do. I know that yesterday the so-called youth forum opened up. This is a good feature of our Krasnoyarsk forum. I would like to hear what proposals have been formulated by our young leaders. Maybe their vision is different from what we offer. We are ready make changes to our approaches. I also found it interesting that in the framework of the Krasnoyarsk forum there is also discussions on the global management challenge and the championship on strategic management and business management: using the appropriate models creates an image of the market in which teams compete. Moreover, the depth of management decisions is evaluated by a computer, which, for obvious reasons you can’t “come to an agreement” with.
In the past year, the national championship, as I was told, was attended by 20,000 people from dozens of regions. This initiative was supported by VEB and ASI. The winning team, representing the Samotlor group of companies, went to the World Championships, where the top teams compete in dozens of countries, and this was the first championship. It's nice actually.
Yet another story. The so-called Imagine Cup - a prestigious international student competition for tech start-ups, which is supported by Microsoft: our teams consistently show good results. And this next cup will be held in St. Petersburg in July this year. It is also quite symbolic, though perhaps not as significant a topic. It is in these guys, in their intelligence, and therefore in our future, that we must invest. That's why we created our innovation centers - in order to fight for the potential leaders of the future.
As is well known, for a small company and a large corporation, and for the whole state, weakness does not come from lack of money, but in people and talents. This was once said in relation to the state by Voltaire. Yes, we are competing and will compete with the world, if we want to be modern and efficient. We compete and will compete for the commodity markets, for capital. But most importantly, what we must compete for - we must fight for rights, for the fact that the most highly trained specialists are our professionals, living and working in our country. Thank you.
Source: правительство.рф