Opening Address at the State Council meeting On Measures to Promote National Competitiveness in a Global Financial Crisis.Part 1
November 18, 2008
Izhevsk
Вступительное слово на заседании Государственного совета «О мерах по развитию национальной конкурентоспособности в условиях мирового финансового кризиса».
18 ноября 2008 года
Ижевск
PRESIDENT OF RUSSIA DMITRY MEDVEDEV: Good afternoon, dear colleagues!
The theme of today's meeting of the State Council of the Russian Federation is national competitiveness within current economic conditions. Competitiveness is not an abstract concept, one found only in books, but rather a tangible, practical thing. And when we talk about competitiveness today we will do so in relation to the current financial and economic situation.
National competitiveness has been and remains our strategic goal. Recently in my Address [to the Federal Assembly], I said that despite the very difficult conditions caused by the crisis we should not put off tasks that will help the development of our economy, our economic life.
Russia's integration into the global economy has increased significantly and is now high. This is linked with significant advantages and, of course, problems as well. We cannot but feel the effects of the financial crisis which is affecting the world today. But there are no alternatives to innovative development, the introduction of advanced technology, and increased productivity, and we all understand this. All of these measures represent the best way to counter this crisis.
The state has already taken certain preliminary steps in this direction. The government cabinet has adopted and is implementing an action plan. The action plan applies to the financial and banking sectors, key industries, and small and medium businesses. These are its basic components.
We must take active measures to support domestic demand, support and optimize regulation in today's labour market, provide social support for the poorest segments of the population. Around 5 trillion roubles will be spent on such stabilisation measures. But this is not the final figure; we all fully understand that the magnitude of the current problems that have engulfed the world economy and global financial system are such that we may be required to take further decisions. If so, we will take them.
What is the key task in this respect? It consists in effectively financing industry and agriculture, in other words the real sector. The global crisis will require that we take new measures to support it. We have been working on this in recent years; much has been done, though not all. But we now require additional measures. And we will take them. Such measures of course include additional instruments concerning bank capitalization, something we are actually doing right now. The government cabinet and the Bank of Russia must work at making sure that each rouble allocated is well spent. Some time ago I talked about this and I would like to repeat it in this room in the presence of the heads of all Russian regions: this is a lot of money and the most important thing is that it be spent effectively. I am not even talking about abuse as there is nothing to say in this respect such actions must be punished in the most stringent way I am talking about the misuse of funds, even in the most plausible fields for development. Or the problems associated with the current situation in the banking sector, with respect to eliminating things that clog up the financial sector today. This is not only our problem. Unfortunately, the crisis of confidence in banking and financial spheres, financial problems, and liquidity problems exist in most developed countries in the world. But this does not make it easier; these problems need to be addressed at home. I wish that all the leaders of regions also pay the utmost attention to this issue, especially since a large part of banks, especially regional banks and small banks, are based in the Russian regions.
So that such actions become systemic in nature, rather than piecemeal, each region should develop their own action plan. There cannot be any uniform solution: it would be funny to create some such plan in Moscow then apply it to the regions. It must be of your own design, and this is as it should be. The plan should be developed and adopted in due course. It is extremely important that we constantly monitor the employment situation. We must constantly, on a daily basis, analyze the situation on the labour market and increase as far as possible, of course financial programmes supporting employment, because these problems could worsen. Work in this field should be coordinated with all those involved in labour relationships: with employers, public organisations and trade unions.
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