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- Family ambitions: the president instructed to create conditions for turning the demographic situation around
Family ambitions: the president instructed to create conditions for turning the demographic situation around
It is necessary to create conditions for the demographic situation in the Russian Federation to be reversed as early as 2025. Vladimir Putin gave this instruction to members of the government at a meeting of the Council for Strategic Development and National Projects held on December 5. A new national project will be launched next year to support the birth rate and the institution of the family. In addition, the meeting spoke about the importance of achieving technological sovereignty - for this purpose the government intends to implement eight national projects. The State Duma positively assesses the new initiatives, but their realization requires appropriate staff and support.
Realization of technological sovereignty
On December 5, Vladimir Putin held a meeting of the Council for Strategic Development and National Projects in the Kremlin. The meeting, which was attended by Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin, as well as many members of the government responsible for the financial and economic bloc, discussed Russia's national development for 2025-2030.
The Russian leader dwelt on the key tasks facing the country in 2025. Among the main priorities, the head of state named the transition to a balanced growth trajectory with low unemployment and moderate inflation, as well as building up production capacity.
- The coming year will be a key year for launching a new stage of technological development of our country," he added. - We are not talking about producing everything domestically. This is neither necessary nor possible. We need to achieve global competitiveness of our own technological solutions, to enter the world market with them, and on this basis to consolidate our leadership in certain areas. Now, unfortunately, the national projects lack a block of such systemic tasks.
Russian President Vladimir Putin holds a meeting of the Council for Strategic Development and National Projects, December 5, 2024
At the same time, the president called for "linking the work" in the civilian segment and in the defense sector in order to "avoid duplication of efforts and dispersal of resources". According to Vladimir Putin, the rocket and space industry is one of the technological flagships today.
- When strengthening technological sovereignty, it is necessary to look at the situation in the industries as a whole, and not only analyze the state of their individual elements. Otherwise it will turn out that formally the plans of the relevant national projects have been fulfilled or even overfulfilled, but in essence independent, competitive areas have not been created," said Vladimir Putin.
Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin noted in his speech that eight out of 19 national projects are aimed at achieving technological sovereignty, the implementation of which will begin next year. About 3 trillion rubles will be allocated for them until 2030. They will contribute to raising the technological level of socio-economic development of the country's main spheres. First of all, it concerns the industrial sector in terms of renewing fixed assets and increasing labor productivity. The national project on means of production and automation is dedicated to this.
Russian President Vladimir Putin and Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin at a meeting of the Council for Strategic Development and National Projects, December 5, 2024
The second most important national project is the New Materials and Chemistry project, under which 55 critical technological chains are to be recreated. The third project is transportation mobility, which will give impetus to the development of the industry. A separate direction is space, where it is necessary to create conveyor production of satellite vehicles. Among others, we can mention the project "Unmanned Aviation Systems", which aims to ensure a five-fold increase in production to reach the level of independence of 70% by 2030 in the field of UAVs.
- Starting from 2025, Russia will launch a pool of breakthrough megaprojects, the main task of which will be to promptly achieve technological sovereignty in critical industries," Alexander Spiridonov, deputy chairman of the State Duma Committee on Industry and Trade, said in a conversation with Izvestia. - For the implementation of all national projects, of course, the strategic task is to provide them with personnel. It is important to realize that all national projects are links in one chain: without support for one project, the second one will not work.
Supporting families and improving the demographic situation
Another important area to which the government intends to devote a significant share of its efforts and resources is improving the birth rate and supporting families. The authorities recognize that the demographic situation in Russia is difficult. Vladimir Putin has focused special attention on this problem. In early September, Rosstat reported that the birth rate in Russia is extremely low. In the first half of 2024, 599.6 thousand babies were born. This is 16.6 thousand less than in the corresponding period last year. In June 2024, 98.6 thousand children were born, while the average figure is 100 thousand and more. As Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said earlier, the birth rate in Russia is at a low level of 1.4. According to the Russian president's spokesman, this figure is "catastrophic" for the future of the nation.
- Given the global demographic crisis that has affected Russia, the most important focus of the state's efforts is to support the family and the birth rate," the president said at a meeting on December 5. - Already next year it is necessary to create conditions for a breakthrough in the demographic situation, realizing that these are very difficult tasks and even under objective circumstances not everything depends on us, but we need to do everything that depends on us to further achieve a steady growth of the birth rate in our country, a positive trend.
It is worth noting that 2024 was the Year of the Family in Russia. In this regard, special attention was paid to the issues of parenthood and children, their support and strengthening the institution of the family. The government has prepared a national project "Family". More than 17 trillion rubles will be allocated from the federal budget for its implementation until 2030 - almost half of the funds envisaged for the implementation of all national projects. It will combine new existing measures to support parents with children. According to Mikhail Mishustin, the focus will be on creating more families with many children in Russia.
- We will continue to form an accessible, high-quality infrastructure, especially in rural areas, including to improve the quality of medical care for those who plan to give birth, pregnant women and babies. It is envisaged to equip children's polyclinics and create women's clinics, build kindergartens, modernize educational spaces, renovate cultural and leisure facilities in small towns, theaters, museums, libraries, - said the Russian Prime Minister.
First Deputy Chairman of the State Duma Committee on Family Protection, Paternity, Maternity and Childhood Tatyana Butskaya positively assesses the prospects for the realization of the national project "Family".
- We have fewer and fewer women of reproductive age every year," she told Izvestia. - We really have room to grow - this is the slogan of the Year of the Family. But it will definitely not end with 2024. We have something to do every day. The President signed a decree on the status of a large family, which has 14 points. We have made a register of large families, issued an electronic certificate of a large family. Now we have to enrich all this with real support measures.
At the meeting, the President criticized the Ministry of Finance for the fact that the agency failed to properly inform citizens about the limits on family mortgages. In the fall, banks began to suspend its issuance because the limits had been used up. In particular, this decision was announced by Sber and VTB. As noted by the Ministry of Finance, the total limit until the end of 2024 is Br6.25 trillion, next year it will be increased by Br2.4 trillion. However, presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov hastened to reassure the public: criticism directed at the government is part of the working process, not evidence of dissatisfaction with the work of the Cabinet as a whole.
Difficulties in the implementation of national projects
The head of state noted that the formation of the new national projects was delayed: it was supposed to be prepared by September 1, i.e. before the federal budget and the budgets of the constituent entities of the Russian Federation were finalized. As a result, the regions do not yet have a complete picture of how, in what amounts and in what timeframe federal resources will be allocated, said Vladimir Putin. He expressed concern that practical work on national projects in early 2025 may "stagnate". According to him, the opinion of citizens will be of key importance in assessing the government's work in this direction. Vladimir Putin urged not to underestimate the benchmarks for national projects, the targets should be objective.
For example, it is now assumed that aviation mobility, that is, how many citizens will fly in the next five years, will not change, will remain at the level of 2023. According to the president, this is clearly an underestimate. Only in the first 10 months of 2024, air transportation grew by more than 6%.
- And that means, at the end of the year, it is likely to be higher than the level of 2023. But you and I know, well, at least those who are professionally engaged in it, we know the situation in the aviation industry, we know the situation with the air fleet. But the tendencies to increase the volume of transportation are not going anywhere, so we need to solve all this. There is no need to pretend that this will not happen. Why should we deceive ourselves," said Vladimir Putin.
The new national projects are the result of the government's hard work, and it is very important that an indicator of people's satisfaction and trust appeared as an evaluation tool, Mikhail Kuznetsov, head of the People's Front executive committee, told Izvestia.
According to him, among the systemic problems that we would like to avoid in the implementation of new national projects, we can highlight the delay in terms and quality of work at the sites (were identified at every tenth major construction site). The second difficulty is that municipalities do not always have sufficient funds for the maintenance of constructed facilities, especially for large-scale improvement. The third problem is that the implemented state information systems do not always reduce the load on teachers, doctors and civil servants, and sometimes, according to their assessment, lead to its appreciable increase, Mikhail Kuznetsov specified.
In general, national projects are an important, though not the only, tool for realizing the government's goals. However, few people in Russia fully understand how they work and why they are needed. That is why the head of state proposed to prepare a special handbook, in which everything will be "laid out on the shelves" and written in clear, not "clerical language". Vladimir Putin instructed the national center "Russia" to compile the relevant material.
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