Meeting with Head of Khakassia Valentin Konovalov

Valentin Konovalov Konovalov ValentinHead of the Republic of Khakassia - Prime Minister of the Republic of Khakassiareported that the Republic demonstrates reasonably good socioeconomic performance, with the economy growing in a number of indicators since 2017 including the region's gross regional product, industrial output, investment, and wages. Khakassia has been working on expanding the non-resource sector as per the objective set by the President. In 2020, it drafted a new socioeconomic development strategy until 2030 and has been offering additional support to the processing sector.

The Head of the Republic went on to talk about housing construction, which reached a new all-time high in 2023 with 373,000 square metres commissioned, which amounted to a per capita indicator of 0.7 square metres. The region has been actively supporting the tourism and services sectors. Since 2017, revenue generated from the processing sector increased by a factor of 1.7, while the same indicator almost doubled for agricultural production. Proceeds from tourism tripled, while the SMEs doubled their revenue. However, the regional economy still depends on aluminium and coal production, which reflects a historical trend. During Soviet times, the Sayano-Shushenskaya HPP was built to serve aluminium plants, while coal production played a major role in the local economy even before the 1917 Revolution, but gradually, the regional economy has come to depend less on these sectors lately.

Turning to national projects, Valentin Konovalov said that they enabled the region to attract over 35 billion rubles since 2019. The Republic of Khakassia built 39 healthcare facilities. Most of them were rural paramedic centres and outpatient clinics, but there were also several major urban projects. For example, the oncology centre got a new radiology building which now serves not only the residents of Khakassia, but also patients from Tyva and the south of the Krasnoyarsk Territory. The region has also upgraded almost its entire fleet of ambulances and medical vehicles, and also bought 1,500 units of medical equipment. In an effort to attract specialists to the Republic, there is a local programme enabling doctors and paramedics to buy housing.

The President noted that the region has yet to reach a national average in terms of the availability of doctors, while Valentin Konovalov responded that Khakassia has gone to great lengths to attract medical professionals and has started training paramedics at its educational institutions.

To be continued.