KEY CONCLUSIONS

National projects as an ambitious new approach to the development of the country as a whole

“National projects are a single matrix into which we have tried to fit the life of the entire country. Never in the history of modern Russia has anything so complex, far-reaching, and ambitious been done before”, Dmitry Medvedev, Prime Minister of the Russian Federation, said.

“We see national projects as an investment instrument that makes it possible to direct resources from different sources to priority goals. The funding specifications for national projects are really impressive, with more than RUB 25.7 trillion over the next 6 years. [...] Almost 1,000 project initiatives have been announced for nearly RUB 76 trillion. 250 of them are already investment proposals for a total amount of approximately RUB 12 trillion”, Medvedev said.

Favourable economic conditions have been created for development within the country 

“Financial markets and the banking system are generally stable. Unlike in many countries, the current situation here is satisfactory, which means a safe level of foreign debt, which has decreased over the past year by more than USD 60 billion. A positive balance of payments; a significant federal budget surplus of approximately 2.7% of the GDP. Growing international reserves – since the beginning of last year we have increased them by USD 43 billion [...] Unemployment remains at a record low of approximately 4.8% of the economically active population. As we expected, inflation at the beginning of the year increased to 5%, though we expect that in a year it will return to the target level”, Medvedev said.

A key success factor is investing in people

“Investing in the education of every person is the most effective investment in the development of the country”, Medvedev said.

“Now, personnel and skills are the new oil and the new gold for our country”, Svetlana Chupsheva, General Director of the Agency for Strategic Initiatives to Promote New Projects, said.

PROBLEMS

Economic growth does not lead to an increase in the well-being of citizens

“Last year, GDP grew by more than 2%. Economic growth has been recorded for the third year in a row. But we are not satisfied with the quality of this growth. The most important thing is that the people of this country have yet to feel this growth”, Medvedev said.

“People in our country still experience hardship and seek social justice. [...] The people of our country should not have to bear it “until the bright future” but should see the results every day. People trust not beautiful presentations and words but what they see with their own eyes”, Medvedev said.

Conservative regulatory framework 

“National projects are a breakthrough, and all our procedures and legislation are very conservative,” Maksim Reshetnikov, Governor of Perm Territory, said.

Insufficient training for a technological breakthrough

“The goal of a technological breakthrough coincides at present with a personnel breakdown”, Chupsheva said.

“The system of secondary vocational education, which traditionally surrounds our enterprises, is incapable of preparing a single high-quality employee for our new industries”, Andrey Komarov, Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Chelyabinsk Pipe Plant, said.

“If we continue in the mindset that says ‘we must prepare 100,000 workers for such-and-such and industry’, we will always lag behind”, Marat Atnashev, Dean of the Moscow School of Management SKOLKOVO, said.

SOLUTIONS

An emphasis on achieving specific life quality indicators

“What do we need to get and what do we need to do? More than 1.5 million apartments and 300,000 individual houses annually; 40 children's wards and hospitals built and reconstructed; 420 centres for ambulatory oncology-related care; 230,000 new places in schools; 245 children's technology parks; 345 rural mobile technology parks for children; [...] 40,000 km of roads repaired in the regions, and the same number in major cities and their suburbs; almost 50 reconstructed airfields; the elimination of a huge number of city dumps; world-class centres. [...] These are totally specific things that will be used to judge the implementation of national projects”, Medvedev said.

“National projects require investment, and during the initial stage, while we are promoting them, people do not immediately see the results. Solving everyday issues fosters trust, which can ultimately be transferred to large-scale projects”, Reshetnikov said.

“Our country lives in different material dimensions. I’m not talking only about money but also about opportunities. Our key task is to minimize these differences between regions so that regardless of where they live, people have normal living conditions, decent wages, the ability to choose work, normal housing, roads, medicine, and education”, Medvedev said.

State support must be systemic and affordable.

“If the support measures that the state provides are well packaged and easily accessible to entrepreneurs, the effect will be much greater than when they are scattered, and it is not clear how to access them. [...] It is very important to set up a mechanism for dialogue between the state and business and so that it functions smoothly”, Artyom Kopylov, Director General of Agromig, said.

Close cooperation between government and business in training personnel

“We need to create a system of continuous education, invest money in it, and attract business to it”, Komarov said.

“We need to build a system of knowledge transfer where business, government agencies, and society as a whole play much bigger roles”, Atnashev said.