Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin conducted a meeting of the Government Presidium
23 June 2008
Заседание Президиума Правительства. В своем выступлении В.В.Путин подробно остановился на вопросах образования в России
23.06.2008
Vladimir Putin: Good afternoon,
First let us exchange current information. The CIS Expert Council met on June 20. It approved the draft agreement on combating counterfeit drugs. What is the outlook for further work?
Tatyana Golikova: It is a very practical decision. We have agreed at the expert level that the CIS member states will inform each other about seizures and the spread and destruction of counterfeit medicines.
This work is within the same context as our internal work to introduce amendments to the Law on Medicines, which we discussed at the conference in Kursk. We believe that after the decision of the CIS Economic Council, the agreement will be put before the Council of the CIS Heads of State, and it will be approved. Then all the matters pertaining to export and import and all the matters I have mentioned will be regulated by mutual agreement among all parties.
Vladimir Putin: Good. Mr Gordeyev, winter crop harvesting is coming to an end. What are the results?
Alexei Gordeyev: As we predicted, last week farmers in the south started the summer harvest. First of all, several thousand hectares of winter barley crops have been threshed in the Krasnodar Territory. It is heartening that our forecast has come true and the yield is about 50 centners per hectare. Considering that winter crops in the south account for the biggest share of grain crops, one can say with confidence that the harvest will be good.
Vladimir Putin: The governor told me yesterday that they are very pleased with the prospects of the harvesting season.
Alexei Gordeyev: Yes, the Rostov Region is another bread basket. You remember that last year we had to help them. They had a drought. Now it is clear that their grain harvest will be about double that of the previous year, perhaps even more than double. The interagency headquarters has switched to an intense operational mode. In general, over the next three months we are committed to ensuring a well-organised harvest.
Vladimir Putin: The peak of the harvesting season in the south is around the beginning of July, am I right?
Alexei Gordeyev: Yes. In fact the Krasnodar Territory sums up the results in late July-early August. By that time obviously all the main harvests will be in.
Vladimir Putin: There was a conference on agriculture in the Belgorod Region on June 21. What was the discussion about?
Elvira Nabiullina: I was in the Belgorod Region on a working trip. First I visited some effective agricultural enterprises, then I held a meeting with farm managers, the leaders of associations and representatives of the Agriculture Ministry.
The main task was to identify specific problems that face highly effective entities, which have already invested in new technologies and are servicing loans. The labour productivity rate at these farms is at least as high as world standards. But they are facing the imbalance in our market between selling their products and the investment cost of feed and machinery, etc.
We looked in detail at the situation in every market, the market for every type of product and we will now, jointly with the Agriculture Ministry, consider additional measures that are needed. Among these measures I will single out that the managers of the best farms have indicated the need for a predictable government policy. There must be predictability not only in terms of duties but in terms of other measures, for example, government intervention in agriculture. Our producers must know what they can count on even before the season begins. Perhaps we should use mortgage loans more actively instead of interventions, which is the current practice.
Also, the managers pointed out the problem of distributing government support measures. They should be concentrated at the enterprises which are high productivity targets, i.e. highly efficient businesses. So perhaps we should see how to reorient government programmes towards the companies that use high technologies and report a high rate of growth.
We have also considered measures to be taken to balance production and processing capacities, because that is a bottleneck. We also discussed technical regulations and other similar issues. I think we will propose additional measures for concrete markets very soon.
http://www.government.ru
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