Mikhail Mishustin chairs strategic session on national projects Means of Production and Automation and Infrastructure for Life

Mikhail Mishustin: In his Address to the Federal Assembly, the President outlined a number of systemic goals in the social sphere and in the development of the country's technological and economic potential. To attain them, we must promptly update and expand existing national projects and prepare new ones. It is extremely important to achieve practical results the citizens of Russia expect from us.

Mikhail Mishustin's opening remarks:

Good afternoon, colleagues.

We continue to hold strategic sessions. In his Address to the Federal Assembly, the President outlined a number of systemic goals in the social sphere and in the development of the country's technological and economic potential. To attain them, we must promptly update and expand existing national projects and prepare new ones.

We have started working on this. We have already held in-depth discussions on the outlines of possible initiatives and the instruments and methods of implementing them. We must now determine the key parameters, appoint persons responsible for these initiatives, and coordinate funding and the limits of budgetary obligations for submitting our proposals to the President and the parliament.

Today, we will begin with a sphere that can be described, with good reason, as basic for modern production in all industries - machine tools, equipment and robot equipment.

Our long-term development will be hindered without our potential and competencies in these spheres, especially in the context of sanctions.

Despite the unfriendly actions, our industries are developing dynamically, primarily in manufacturing, which grew by over 8 percent in April. Mechanical engineering has been the main driver for many months. Its output went up by 30 percent in April. As for the sector of computer and electronic equipment, its output increased by 44 percent.

However, our companies' resources for expanding production are limited. We must start the technological renovation of our engineering companies, which are the main consumers of machine-tools and equipment. We must also create computer-aided manufacturing using modern robots and high-tech machine-tools.

This implies increasing the production of the relevant domestic equipment, expanding the line of products and training personnel, so that renovation and modernisation is based largely on domestic resources and Russian companies manufacture quality products based on greater localisation that will be in demand on the domestic market and abroad. If necessary, they should be able to take the place of foreign suppliers that have left our market.

The Government is paying special attention to the development of the national machine-tool industry. As you know, we have prepared a development programme for the machine-tool and robot equipment industries at the Coordination Centre with contribution from a broad range of experts. The funding necessary for its implementation has been estimated at over 300 billion roubles until 2030.

The technological sovereignty criteria and metrics have been defined for investment projects to make them eligible for state support.

Accordingly, specific support measures have been developed on the basis of these metrics. There are industry-specific support programmes as well as system-wide initiatives such as the cluster investment platform, preferential credit for priority products, expansion of the industrial mortgage programme, reverse engineering, and many others. I would like to highlight subsidies for discounts to buyers, for the purchase of machine tools and robots, support for research and development, especially for projects to develop unique equipment, preferential loans from the Industrial Development Fund for modernisation of facilities and technology upgrades, creation of centres for the development of industrial robots and Stankin, the main competence centre for the machine tool industry.

Thanks to these decisions, among others, last year, the output of machine tool products in our country grew by 60 percent. Of course, that was due to the previously low base, but this was a major step forward anyway. Moreover, certain segments showed even higher results.

The output of metal-cutting machine tools increased by almost 96 percent, in value terms, and that of forging and pressing equipment, by 370 percent. The upward trend continued this year: the output of machine tools rose by a third in January-April.

Robotics is also growing fast, with production up more than 50 percent.

However, we need to continue stepping up our efforts to attain the objectives set out in the President's Address. We plan to upgrade this programme to a national project. This new national project should ensure the attainment of the technological leadership goals set by the President, and accelerate robotisation in industry, so that Russia would enter the top 25 most advanced countries in robotics by 2030.

The Ministry of Industry and Trade will present its proposals in this regard today.

Colleagues,

The advancement in machine tool engineering and robotics will have a strong cumulative effect on the economy and, I am sure, will support positive trends in a number of related industries, including software development, which is also essential for CNC machine tools as well as for basic management processes. This will also help increase overall labour productivity.

We are to create a domestic market for robotics. I am sure that it should not be limited to industrial robots. Many solutions, technologies and innovations can be applied in mining, logistics, agriculture and many other fields.

We are talking not only about specific production facilities; we are creating a full-fledged industry, one extremely important for the nation, with its own testing facilities, competence centre, and so on.

I have another important point to make.

The President emphasised that all national projects should be aimed at achieving national goals, including creating a comfortable and safe living environment. The Infrastructure for Life national project should be aligned with this goal. This project, aimed at integrated development of communities, will include residential and road construction, modernising the housing and utilities infrastructure, up-to-date public transport and all the other things that add up to a more comfortable living environment.

The national goal to create a comfortable and safe living environment involves several specific, clear and measurable objectives. To achieve them, a number of steps need to be taken to maintain the current pace of housing construction until 2030. We need to modernise the utilities infrastructure, increase its capacity, and improve the quality of services for 20 million residents. The task is difficult. Today, on average, more than a third of heating, water supply and sewage networks around the country need to be replaced. Also, we need to continue and enhance our efforts to reduce the use of hazardous housing and build social facilities. It is also imperative to improve roads and build new ones. We need to upgrade public transport, to ensure greater connectivity across our regions.

In addition, in response to the President's proposal, we will develop a programme for integrated development of communities based on 2,000 points of growth and draw up master plans for 200 cities and towns.

The funding for these far-reaching activities should be provided, among other things, using the tools from our infrastructure menu. The most popular of them are special treasury loans, budget loans for infrastructure development, and bonds. We have also agreed to write off about two-thirds of Russian businesses' debt on their budget loans, at the President's instruction. Speaking at the St Petersburg Economic Forum, the President specifically highlighted the need to work out the details of this mechanism with the regions in the near future. I ask all those responsible for this to look through all our plans carefully again.

During my working trips, I always check with the heads of the regions whether they are using these tools, what projects they direct these resources to, how effectively the tools are working, and whether this type of financial support helps them address their most pressing economic tasks.

Colleagues, today we have to outline the structure, content and main parameters of the new national projects, and develop our approaches to implementing the plans.

The implementation of the new national projects will require the involvement of all levels of government, as well as businesses, public organisations, parliamentarians, and experts. All stakeholders should be part of a coherent, consistent and clearly coordinated effort. As the President emphasised, a holistic national projects management system needs to be put in place.

And it is extremely important to achieve tangible results - the results that the citizens of Russia expect from us.

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