The Prime Minister answered questions from TV presenters Valery Fadeev (Channel One), Sergei Brilev (Russia), Irada Zeynalova (NTV), Igor Poletaev (RBC) and Mikhail Fishman (Dozhd).

From the transcript:

S. Brilev: Hello, dear TV viewers! The annual format “Conversation with Dmitry Medvedev” is on air. Hello, Dmitry Anatolyevich.

D. Medvedev: Hello.

S. Brilev: Dmitry Anatolyevich, I once formulated that this program has two constants: you - in the spotlight - and the TV channel, the VGTRK radio channel as a permanent broadcaster. We have a constantly changing circle of those who ask you questions. Clockwise: Irada Zeynalova - NTV, Igor Poletaev joins us this year - representing RBC, Mikhail Fishman - Dozhd TV channel and Valery Fadeev - Channel One.

Dmitry Anatolyevich, as a traditional channel broadcaster, I will ask the traditional question about the results of the year, but I will outline this feature of this line: your Government is already a record-breaking government, in new Russia No government has worked for so long. At the same time, the term of the presidency, with which your Government is the same age, is about to expire. More on this a little later, but for now let’s talk about the current year.

Previous news Next news

How do you assess the results of the Government’s work, how do you assess the state of the economy?

D. Medvedev: We usually start with these questions, and this is correct, since we need to assess what happened.

In my opinion, today we can testify that the economy has entered a stage of growth and, in general, the changes that have taken place in the economy are quite favorable.

By the way, yesterday Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin just said that the main achievement or, so to speak, the main assessment of the outgoing year is that the economy has emerged from recession. This is exactly so, because, let me remind you, last year we had a decline in economic development, that is, so-called negative growth, in the amount (including recalculations) of 0.2%. Not much at all, but still the growth was practically zero and even negative. This year the situation is different. Now, of course, there are also a lot of forecasts, however, all analysts - both ours and foreign ones - agree that by the end of this year we will receive approximately 2% growth in gross domestic product. This is not a huge figure, but it is still a figure that corresponds to the average global growth rate in developed countries.

Further. Perhaps more importantly, we will have record low inflation this year. In all likelihood, it will be below 3%. I’m not giving absolute numbers yet. We still need the statistics to work and the year to end. But this will be an absolute achievement for the entire post-Soviet era. That is, over the entire period of development of modern Russia, inflation has never fallen so low. This, of course, has direct significance for the economy, where such inflation allows for more cheap loans, and for ordinary citizens, for whom the depreciation of money and the solvency of a currency become more understandable values.

Further. What is important is that this year we can state that there is an increase in real incomes of the population and an increase in real wages. By the end of the year, in all likelihood, it will grow by approximately 3%. If we talk about nominal growth, then this is 7%. This may not be the most outstanding result either, but it is nonetheless an important change in trend. This means that we have entered a situation where incomes are no longer falling, but are growing. And this is very important, extremely important for all citizens of our country.

There are other very serious macro indicators that I want to draw attention to. For example, investments in fixed capital, which also characterize the general situation in the economy. They will grow by more than 4% by the end of the year. We didn't see this either last years, and this is also the result of economic development this year. I’m not talking about generally important indicators such as budget balance and foreign exchange reserves, which are also growing this year. Finally, it is extremely important that at the end of the year we can state that the ruble exchange rate is stable and predictable. But we will probably talk about this later today, because this topic is always quite important.

These are macro indicators, indicators of economic stability, and they characterize the past year. But something else is no less important, and I would like to say this right away: despite all the gloomy forecasts, despite the pressure, despite the fact that all the challenges that our economy faces remain, we are in full fulfilled social obligations. We did everything we planned. And I think that this is a good result that the economy showed, and in general a good result of the activities of all the structures that took part in this.

S. Brilev: I'd like to hear the details.

I. Zeinalova: Dmitry Anatolyevich, what if we just focus on the ruble to dollar exchange rate? We, of course, are getting off the oil needle, everything is fine with us, we have historically low inflation, but at the same time we hear talk that low inflation cannot be an end in itself, that productivity is not growing as quickly as we would like, that some kind of rescue is taking place, the reorganization of banks, that now corporate debts will be paid and the like. The end of the year is approaching, and we all remember what happens at the end of the year. Tell me, what will the ruble exchange rate be, in your opinion, in the coming months? And where should you keep your savings now, since the end of the year is such a critical period for Russians?

D. Medvedev: Irada, in general, not a single macro indicator can be an end in itself. The goal in itself is to increase the well-being of citizens Russian Federation. This is the most important goal.

I. Zeinalova: In rubles or dollars?

D. Medvedev: It's good if it happens in both.

Now I answer your question directly. It is quite obvious that the national currency exchange rate is currently stable, despite the fact that exchange rate A number of indicators and parameters always influence. This, of course, also includes the global financial system, the relationship between the rates of the main reserve currencies. This internal state economy. In relation to our country, it is completely clear that the internal state of the economy is largely dictated by hydrocarbon prices, that is, oil prices. Plus other factors, including relevant external shocks or external influences such as sanctions. So now, taken together, we can admit that all these parameters, although they have an impact on the ruble exchange rate, are still not such that it is as volatile as it was several years ago. Look at what happened, for example, with the ruble exchange rate and what happened with oil prices. Over the past year (a little more), our oil has fluctuated by up to 50% - from 43 dollars per barrel to 65. That is, the spread is huge. Previously, when we observed such volatility, such dynamics in oil prices, the ruble followed the oil in the same way.

I. Zeinalova: And now he's loosened up.

D. Medvedev: And now he's loosened up. And this is very good, it means that it is stable. In other words, during the same time, the ruble exchange rate was between 56 rubles per dollar and 64–65. Moreover, the dollar exchange rate, of course, is not fixed; it also moved and changed during this time. In other words, the economy has already entered a different phase.

Now I answer the second part of your question. Really, National currency stable. The question arises where to store money. In my opinion, there are at least two answers to this question. First: of course, it depends on what goals are pursued by a particular citizen or company that is going to save some money. In other words, is this person ready for risky operations? Not many such transactions usually occur on the market in the proportion of all market transactions. And the second question is how the citizen stores his savings and how the citizen pays in his daily activities. Taking into account the fact that the absolute, overwhelming majority of our citizens today keep their savings in rubles, pay in rubles and receive salaries in rubles, the answer is obvious where to store funds, where to store supplies.

I. Zeinalova: That is, before the New Year, the traditional collapse of the ruble...

D. Medvedev: It's not traditional. We really had a very difficult situation when the ruble was subjected to such an impact and when we, in fact, moved to an open, free corridor, but nothing like this is predicted this year and is impossible to imagine.

M. Fishman: I also have a question about economic growth. You said that the economy has emerged from recession. This is gratifying, but the question about the quality of growth still remains. You mentioned the figure of 2%, I will refer to the adjusted forecast of the Central Bank for the year – growth rate of 1.8%. One way or another, this is not enough; it is, in fact, a forecast for stagnation. And if this is so, then, of course, the question arises as to why this is happening. There are different opinions. It is believed that this is an effect external factors, sanctions, the price of oil has fallen, although it has increased recently. Or there is an opinion, experts say about this: our economy has exhausted its possibilities in its current form, and without real denationalization of the economy, without real guarantees of property rights, without a working judicial system, and so on, such growth is our ceiling.

D. Medvedev: Mikhail, I still cannot agree that 2% is stagnation. Because, let's be honest, some countries would envy this 2%. The question, of course, is what is the base – the base of growth. For us, it is not as significant as we would like, and we are really not satisfied with 2%, although this is much better than minus 2, or minus 3, or about zero.

Now let’s talk about whether we have exhausted the opportunities for growth or not. I think that we, of course, have not exhausted them, but you are right that our economy is under the influence of what economists call shocks. This, by the way, was also in previous period, and now. I mean both external shocks and internal shocks, or internal challenges. Among the external ones, of course, are the prices for hydrocarbons, which, although they have increased, are still very different from what we had three or four years ago. And external sanctions, that is, attempts to influence our economic situation through the adoption of political measures by individual states. But no less important, and perhaps a more significant problem, of course, remains the structure of our economy, which is still largely focused on hydrocarbon growth.

Yes, she is changing. We analyzed these factors last year. Indeed, we now receive more than half of our income, about 60%, not from oil and gas trade, but from other sources. But it is desirable that there be 80, 85 percent of these sources. So that we are not so dependent on all trends in the oil market. Therefore, the task of changing the structure of the economy, carrying out structural reforms, and, if necessary, what you are talking about: the state’s withdrawal from certain industries or, conversely, if appropriate, the state’s entry into certain segments, remains relevant. This model will need to be implemented in the coming years if we do not want to “freeze” at 2%, and that would be really bad.

V. Fadeev: Dmitry Anatolyevich, continuing the topic of structural reforms and sanctions. After all, we have bottlenecks in the economy - high-tech industries: machine tool building, microelectronics. These are complex industries. They require very serious work. And I’m not sure that only private business can cope with this. In connection with the sanctions, in connection with the risks that we have from outside, what measures are proposed to develop such complex industries?

D. Medvedev: Yes, these industries are complex, but extremely important for us. And this is precisely what non-commodity growth is all about.

The measures are clear. In fact, we have already begun to implement them. These are investments in the industries you name. This is what is called machine tool building or production of means of production. Just recently we purchased 87% of machine tools for export. In fact, 90%. Now this figure, based on the results of this year, will already be around 70%. It’s also a lot, but it’s still a significant increase. By the way, there appeared major players in this market - purely Russian. Such as the STAN group, for example, and some others. These are purely Russian participants. Despite the fact that we still have to obtain technology, create joint businesses with our foreign partners, and so on.

If we talk about microelectronics, about IT, this is also a very complex area. This is not to say that we have never dealt with it. The same Zelenograd was created back in the Soviet period as a center for the development of microelectronics. And our leading enterprises also appeared practically on the basis of what was created then. The main thing is that they correspond to the level dictated by the current situation. And these are very subtle, hypersensitive things. By the way, some of these technologies were naturally placed under sanctions so that we would feel uncomfortable in this sense.

But we must still develop, and we must still use these technologies in everyday life. It is impossible to imagine modern life without this kind of technology.

Until recently, we did not have our own internal payment system. The point is not the sanctions, but simply the fact that the world is very vulnerable. Digital technologies are vulnerable. It’s full of all sorts of gavriks who simply do harm by making certain decisions and influencing the same network. We have created our own payment system. But how to operate this payment system? Naturally, we must have our own chips and our own cards. This was done in the form of this project - the World map. The task is to ensure that all this is at the highest level.

There are other issues that we are currently dealing with, and I just recently spoke about this with colleagues from the Eurasian Union: the idea of ​​traceability of goods and electronic tags.

You understand, the modern world is structured in such a way that, in principle, it is very important to know how a product came to us (anything from toothpaste to a car) and what stages it went through. In order to put a barrier to counterfeit goods, in order to put a barrier to all kinds of gray imports, violations of the law, and ultimately, simply non-payment of taxes from these transactions. Therefore, traceability of goods and electronic tags are the future of the economy. The Digital Economy program has just been adopted, and this is exactly what it is aimed at.

If we talk about investments, these investments were included in the anti-crisis program and are still being maintained. These are investments through the Production Development Fund and through our innovation institutes. For example, if we talk about the machine tool industry, at the moment credit support amounts to about 3 billion rubles, and this is only through one of the channels. That’s why we are doing this, we understand how important it is, and we understand that this is the future of our economy. There can be no doubt here.

I. Poletaev: Dmitry Anatolyevich, I wanted to raise an issue that my colleague Mikhail (Fishman) already raised it. Estimated Analytical Center under the Government, there are now about 12 million working poor in Russia, more than 20 million people live below the poverty line. And there is an opinion that this figure will be reduced in five to seven years. Does this mean that we will not be able to overcome poverty by, for example, increasing the rate of GDP growth to the global average or higher in the coming years?

D. Medvedev: Poverty is, of course, one of the most glaring problems. Naturally, poverty itself is reverse side underdevelopment of the economy, because there cannot be a situation where the economy is in a weak state and there are no poor people at all.

It is very important that, through consolidated efforts, we take real steps aimed at combating poverty, low income of people. Indeed, over the past few years, due to economic problems, the number of such people has increased. It is still significantly less than what we started with at the beginning of this century, 10–15 years ago. At that time, the number of people who had incomes below the required level was measured at 30 million people. But this is still a large, very large figure. This is the first thing I want to say.

Second. There can be no abstract calls to fight poverty: let's make the economy better, and there will be fewer poor people. This is, of course, not true. This is an absolutely systematic, specific work that concerns specific groups of the population, precisely those who need help.

What is the problem with our social system (it was and still is)? The system in this sense is not entirely fair, because it smears everything with an almost thin layer. And people who have good incomes are entitled to some kind of benefits, and people who have very low incomes are entitled to the same benefits. Therefore, the idea of ​​targeting is extremely important. Only it needs to be brought to its logical conclusion, that is, to register any person who needs support.

What groups of people are these? It’s clear which groups. These are pensioners, people with health limitations, that is, people with disabilities, and, as a rule, people who have large families, including large families. It is in these categories that decisions are made.

If we talk about pensioners, then, of course, the main task here is to increase pensions. This is what we were faced with some time ago - the task of indexing pensions in accordance with inflation or even higher than inflation. Actually, we have now provided this.

If we talk about programs to support people with health limitations and people with disabilities, then these are, naturally, programs for their social and medical rehabilitation. We also implement such programs; they are of a very specific nature.

Supporting families with children is generally a key task, because we know what demographic situation we are in. This is our future. And it’s very bad when people who make decisions about how to plan a family are faced with financial problems. This is the main limiter. When we started the program maternity capital and began to pay this maternity benefit for the birth of a second child, based on the fact that this could stimulate the growth of children. And so it happened. By the way, this program is working, and the President has just announced that he proposes to maintain this program for the next period - until the end of 2021. This is a long-awaited decision. It seems to me that it will play its role.

Some other very important steps were also announced. Let me remind you which ones. One of these new solutions is benefits for those families who decide to have their first child. Because we are convinced that now is the time to stimulate and encourage people to have not second children, as we tried to do 10 years ago, but first children. And for this purpose, a targeted benefit is being introduced, I emphasize right away, this is exactly the targeting that I spoke about - for families who are having their first child. This benefit will amount to one living wage and be paid until the age of one and a half years.

There is another solution: using maternity capital, pay a similar allowance, but to those who have second and third births, if these families want to receive additional money.

Another important decision. When people start a family and think about children, the question is not only what exactly is earned in a particular month, what benefits are paid, but also where to live. This is perhaps the most important task for any family. This is exactly what another idea is aimed at, which is to subsidize mortgage loans above the 6% level (and according to all world calculations, 6% is exactly the mortgage that the vast majority of families can afford when interest rate 6%). So, the difference between 6% and the current mortgage rate will be compensated by federal funds. This will apply to those who have a second and third child, and such measures will be introduced for three and five years. It seems to me that this will significantly motivate people, and, on the other hand, it will stimulate the mortgage program itself, which is also extremely important for us.

All these decisions, it seems to me, together are aimed at helping those people who have problems with income.

I. Zeinalova: Dmitry Anatolyevich, year after year I ask the same question about pensions. I wouldn’t want to remain completely helpless and without money in my old age. Now suddenly there have been statements (which, of course, have been refuted, but there remains a feeling that there is no smoke without fire) that Pension Fund empty and basically nothing to pay with. Moreover, there has already been talk that pensions are indexed only for non-working pensioners. And as a result, those who work have gone into the shadows and do not pay taxes, somehow trying to survive. So is there any way to pay pensions for this category? Because otherwise there will be those who work and those who do not work, not just the poor, but the beggars.

D. Medvedev: Irada, it is clear that any kind of negative information always leaves a deep wound in the soul, because, as we usually say, a residue remains. It seems to have been refuted, but it still turns out murky somehow.

I would like to officially say on behalf of both the Government and the Pension Fund: in this sense, everything is in order in the Pension Fund, there is money to pay pensions in full, and there will be no problems at all. There won't be any problems.

Another thing is that we need to think about how to optimize these monetary savings themselves, how to manage them, how to position the state in this system, the relationship between the federal budget and the Pension Fund. These are all tasks for the coming years, but they have nothing to do with payments, where everything is absolutely in order. Moreover, pensions concern 43 million people, that is, pensioners are, in fact, a third of the population of our country. Therefore, this is an extremely sensitive topic on which there can be no ambiguity. There is money, everything will be paid.

Moreover, we proceed from the need to pay pensions and index them next year, not even in February, but in January. And this indexation will clearly be higher than inflation, because inflation, as I said at the beginning of our program, will be below 3%. Maybe even quite seriously below 3%, we’ll wait and see. And indexation has already been planned, money has been allocated for it, it will be 3.7%. This still means that we have returned to the normal state, when indexation occurs at or above the rate of inflation. This is how we will act, there is no doubt about it.

I. Zeinalova: That is, those who said all this are wrong?

D. Medvedev: Whoever said all this meant something completely different. Because it was those who said all this who later themselves gave refutations on this topic. If you mean a few words that Alexey Kudrin said: he said that he meant the need to develop the pension system, and not the presence of money there, they say, his words were taken out of context.

S. Brilev: Then let's talk about taxes. This is my favorite question. A couple of years ago I got it from the audience when I was visibly happy at your answer that personal income tax would not change. Now there is a new round of talk about tax burden. But I wanted to focus on personal income tax, because it affects everyone. Dmitry Anatolyevich, will it still remain flat? That is, let it be not 13, but 15–17%, better lower, to be honest... But it will remain flat - personal income tax?

D. Medvedev: We promised that during the current period (the President said this, the Government relayed it all) the basis will not change tax system. And we did it, no matter what they said, no matter how much they reproached us for introducing some kind of quasi-tax payments, and so on. It is clear that the tax system is complex, but in general the basis of the tax system, the tax rates, have all been preserved. Name me a country where it would be the same as ours, where tax rates have not changed at all for four or five years. There are practically no such countries. That's why we did everything here.

Regarding personal income tax. There are currently no decisions on changing personal income tax. Are changes possible in the future? There are no eternal taxes. All I can say is that it's flat personal income tax scale turned out to be very successful for our country. It justified itself - we pulled a huge amount of income out of the shadows; not only people with low incomes, but also very rich people are not afraid to pay taxes. Collection growth has increased, we collect up to 3 trillion in personal income tax per year - this is a huge amount. Of course, when deciding which way to go, we need to think about how much we will collect if the rate changes, and about who will pay what.

S. Brilev: They may start to cheat, calling a spade a spade...

D. Medvedev: It is possible if, for example, you do something illiterately. Then there will obviously be a return to envelopes, gray and other payments, the budget will not receive the necessary income - it will only be worse for everyone. This does not mean that you can never encroach on this very flat scale. Moreover, as we talked about this, most modern developed countries, countries with developed economies, still have a more complex taxation scale than we do. I'm not talking about a proportional system, but a more complex scale.

For example, you are talking about 13%, but we have people with very low incomes, which we talked about. Probably, hypothetically, we can also consider the option of introducing some kind of benefits, when people with very low incomes do not pay tax at all. They will be deducted from the tax base, quite rightly. On the other hand, some people are probably able to pay a slightly higher tax. All this must be weighed and a final decision made. And to end on a positive note, I believe that the easy-to-calculate, understandable scale of personal income tax has justified itself. And then we'll see.

I. Poletaev: Dmitry Anatolyevich, wanted global economic question ask. International rating agencies do not rule out that trillions in costs for the rehabilitation of problem banks with the participation of the Central Bank could in the future lead to budget crisis. What do you think about this? And are you generally satisfied with the work of the financial system?

D. Medvedev: The main thing is not whether I am happy. Are people happy with how the financial system works, the citizens of our country? And, of course, the company, the business, are they happy with how the financial system works? These are two key components. I believe that at the moment our financial system is in a stable, equilibrium, normal state. Despite the difficulties that we had several years ago, this system was balanced due to the successful decisions that the Central Bank made, they were resonant, but ultimately turned out to be successful for the financial system. The government, in its part, also accepted or supported these decisions. The way they were implemented has resulted in the financial system being in a stable state.

This does not mean that we are completely calm and should not do anything. The Central Bank continues to actively work to restore order in the financial world. We really had a lot of banks, some of them either did not have sufficient capital to develop, or made decisions aimed at supporting certain groups of shareholders, in fact, cutting off power to the activities of the bank itself and withdrawing money through very dubious transactions. For such banks, the Central Bank decided to revoke the license and close them. This is a problematic story, there are always lawsuits, disputes, people lose money. But this is still clearing the financial field, because when there are too many such banks, they can undermine the entire system, including even the largest banks. Therefore, the need to restore order here does not raise any doubts. It seems to me that the Central Bank is coping with this.

For banks, indicators are very important - the formation of reserves, capital adequacy, risk standard per borrower, liquidity issues, that is, the availability of sufficient capital, money in the bank itself. The Central Bank and the Government, insofar as it concerns the Government, have been and will continue to monitor all these positions. But there is absolutely no reason to believe that these measures will lead to any reverse effect. On the contrary, it seems to me that our financial system has strengthened as a result of everything that has happened in the last two or three years. This, by the way, is to a certain extent manifested not only in the indicators of our financial world, but also in the quotes of our currency, which we have already discussed.

V. Fadeev: Dmitry Anatolyevich, let me return to social issue. Deceived shareholders. At one time it seemed that the topic was closed and the defrauded investors would remain deceived forever. But this year very serious changes have taken place: a law was adopted by the State Duma to ensure that there are no more such deceived people, and some serious measures are being taken. People who have already lost faith that they will get their apartments seem to be gaining faith again. What's going on here? And have there been fewer already defrauded shareholders?

D. Medvedev: You are right, Valery, that certain decisions have been made. In my opinion, the solutions are long-awaited. But this does not mean that you need to stop there.

I would split the problem of shareholders into two parts. The first is to prevent manipulation of shareholders' money in the future. For this purpose, a law was adopted, the Fund for the Protection of the Rights of Citizens - Participants was created shared construction. Moreover, this protection is carried out in two ways: either by placing the accumulated funds in the actual construction, or by paying compensation. These funds must be included in the contracts themselves, according to which the organization carrying out shared construction is obliged to transfer part of the cost of construction...

V. Fadeev: They are afraid that prices will immediately rise.

D. Medvedev: There's only 1.2%. This will not affect the cost of construction services or contract work in general. Moreover, you know that these prices have been falling recently. And our developers, our contractors are worried for these reasons. That is, this had virtually no effect on prices or the construction market. But this creates a money bag through which these problems can be solved. This is part of the problem.

There is another part of the problem. It lies in the need to help those who are already in this situation. These rules cannot apply to them to such an extent, and there it is already a piecemeal work carried out by the regions with the support of the federal Government. There are the most different problems. Region differs greatly from region to region. Somewhere there are many such people, somewhere there are very few of them. Somewhere the region was successful and solved these problems, somewhere the queue and the need to complete houses is measured in tens of thousands. All this needs to be resolved, done carefully, treating those who find themselves in such a situation with utmost attention and tact. I receive a huge number of such requests. People write on social networks. Naturally, we try to show regions what to pay attention to. And there is money for the corresponding purposes in the federal budget. This, however, does not allow us to solve the problem at once, however, it is also clear what to do here. This is the second thing.

And the third is for the future. We need to complete the existing agreements and close the whole problem of defrauded shareholders, which has arisen in recent years. And in the future, we need to abandon shared construction agreements altogether. These are all, if you like, rudiments of a previous era. This is all a legacy of the underdeveloped housing market. In no other countries do such shared construction agreements exist. Mortgage - yes. I took the money, preferably at a normal rate, and bought an apartment. But here, due to the fact that the financial system worked so-so, as they say, due to the fact that construction technologies were not up to par, it was necessary to finance construction projects at the expense of the citizens themselves, and we had this model.

In the future, we need to gradually move away from shared construction to a normal, civilized mortgage - with subsidies if necessary, including at the state expense or at the expense of the employer, which, by the way, is also very common. This will be the best guarantee against manipulation of the money of those who want to purchase an apartment.

I. Zeinalova: Dmitry Anatolyevich, more about support. It sounded very nice: stop making business a nightmare. And everyone said: we’ll stop making business a nightmare, that’s enough... And suddenly I’m talking to teachers, talking to doctors, and I’m faced with an absolutely amazing problem: they’re making the social sphere a nightmare. Teachers have to make a billion papers to buy each textbook. A student cannot be asked to erase the board because this may be considered child labor. Doctors have to write a thousand papers because each pill may be on one list and not on another. As a result, the health care reform that we are all waiting for and so want to receive results in the fact that formally doctors must report on some incredible scientific works, rather than solving the problem of how to get to a remote village. How does this health care reform now include the very problem of increasing the accessibility of medical services and improving the quality, in principle, of professional services in the social sphere? Otherwise, doctors will get bogged down in formal paperwork, and we will not get either new education or healthcare...

D. Medvedev: What do we have to do? Firstly, reporting in general is necessary; it cannot be completely abandoned. Because if we say: don’t record anything at all, don’t write it down, the flip side may be that we’ll go to the other extreme, when it’s impossible to track how a person was treated, how a person was taught, what happened in school or hospital. But, of course, this reporting should be reasonable, and not prohibitive. Lately the pile of these reports has really grown, everyone points to this: teachers, doctors, workers social sphere and the citizens themselves, who are forced to spend a lot of time in the doctor’s office, and 80% of this time the doctor writes something, writes and does not look at the patient.

What to do? Introduce modern forms of control and reporting. What are these forms? This electronic forms, there is nothing supernatural here, the doctor does everything in an electronic form. He already has everything, he just places a few positions and reports in exactly the same way. This is completely normal. The social worker does the same, because we are moving to maintaining work records in electronic form. The same goes for teachers. This is one side of the problem. The second side of the challenge is to provide better accessibility, which is what you are talking about. And here too to the rescue...

I. Zeinalova: So that doctors can use a computer...

D. Medvedev: I think, Irada, that they already know how to use it. It seemed to me that everything here was complicated in this sense. 10 years ago I began the transition of schools to the Internet in our country, as they say. Back then we had very few connections. And when I went to school, I watched how our teachers, often already of advanced age, looked with longing at all these computers that children easily use. There is no such problem now, everyone has learned. And this, it seems to me, is absolutely normal. But it is very important that accessibility is ensured, and this accessibility is really related to the use of modern digital technologies. After all, it is not at all necessary to take the patient somewhere from the region to the regional center in order to get a consultation. Sometimes it’s hundreds of kilometers, it’s hard, and the patient, the person, may simply feel unwell. But if there is electronic communication, if there is direct communication via the Internet, you can show all the examination data, instruments that take readings from the patient, and get qualified advice either in a regional center, or even in Moscow, in a leading center (and this will take 15 minutes ), get the right picture and make the right medical decision. This is very important, and now we are discussing the issue of using additional money to create such a system of electronic communications between central district hospitals, regional hospitals and federal clinics.

M. Fishman: I’ll continue about reporting and how they are a nightmare. I'll just ask about theaters. You probably know about the Seventh Studio criminal case. The famous director Kirill Serebrennikov is under house arrest. Sofya Apfelbaum, the former head of the relevant department in the Ministry of Culture, also a former theater director, is under house arrest. Alexey Malobrodsky, the former general producer of the Seventh Studio, has been sitting in a pre-trial detention center, behind bars for five months. The reporting needs to be checked, that’s clear. But here the scale of the accusations made and the aggression that manifests itself go beyond conceivable limits. The theater community is responding. The Union of Theater Workers has already said that this is, in fact, a demonstrative selective act of intimidation, a campaign launched against theaters. They say that the laws are such that such claims can be made against any theater. In essence, normal, ordinary theatrical activities are criminalized. Grab anyone. The Union of Russian Museums also supported them, they also say that the laws need to be changed. And of course, I want to ask, how do you look at this matter specifically and at this whole situation?

D. Medvedev: I think that our representatives of the creative professions are right that the legislation in this area is extremely imperfect. In relation to theaters, film production, and a number of other creative professions.

I also discussed this with them several times. Unfortunately, change is not as fast as we would all like. Everything revolves around government procurement and public services. This is the so-called 44th law, which dictates, in general, quite understandable competitive requirements. And we are all for competition. The market is the market. But as soon as we move into the creative world, all these criteria fail. It’s one thing to buy paper clips and pencils for a competition, and another thing to buy props, or create something on stage, or engage in film production somewhere in a distant village. What kind of competition is there? The only performer? This is the first.

Second. I have already encountered this more than once; directors have approached me: you know, we are making a film, now everything is included in the system that the Ministry of Finance proposed, a system of control and administration through the treasury. All this is good, we completely agree with this, but how can we pay the carpenter who creates some decorations for us somewhere in a distant Siberian town? We need cash, we can’t do anything without it, he doesn’t have an account, it’s impossible to pay with a card.

We are making progress, and according to the treasury support system, I personally gave instructions twice every year that more flexible criteria be applied here. But in general, the system of government contracts and government procurement in relation to theaters, film production, and other creative activities should become more loyal. But, as usual, the question is within the limits of this loyalty. You and I cannot allow another situation when they tell us: you know what, I’m going to make a film, I need 5 million rubles, give me all this in cash, because I won’t be able to pay any of the participants in the film production in any other way. To report - well, I’ll bring you some papers.

Also a question. Therefore, here we need to create a working model. This is the first. The second is, of course, the question of the accuracy of the reflection of all these actions in accounting. You said that our colleagues from the creative community say that similar claims, in their opinion, can be made to any creative production - to film production and to theatrical production. Probably everyone has flaws, but still the task of those who do this is to follow the existing rules to the maximum. It's difficult, but you need to pay attention to it. This is what they do all over the world. Thus, the movement must be counter-movement - on the one hand, it is necessary to create a more understandable, more efficient, more loyal, if you like, framework for creative activity and its legalization for creative professions, and on the other hand, the representatives of creative professions themselves, themselves organizations that are involved in this should monitor as closely as possible what is happening to them.

Now regarding this matter. Of course, it’s difficult for me to comment now, because the investigation is still ongoing. The matter is very resonant; commenting on this kind of thing is a thankless task. We need to figure out exactly where there are possible violations, and where, in fact, there is a need to adopt operational decisions that do not go beyond the law. I hope that the investigative and judicial structures will be able to sort this out.

M. Fishman: Dmitry Anatolyevich, will you allow me to clarify (because you yourself say that this is a resonant matter, and indeed our audience is very, very worried about it) about selectivity? Just the other day, the Investigative Committee dropped the criminal case against the director of another major theater, the Novosibirsk Opera and Ballet Theater, due to the statute of limitations. They are similar, these statutes of limitations, but here people are sitting in pre-trial detention. And this is sort of selective...

D. Medvedev: I’ll tell you this, Mikhail, I would be very sad if final decisions were made only taking into account the expiration of the statute of limitations. It is advisable to complete everything within the legal time frame. This is the first. Second. All processes always have different sides. There are law enforcement agencies, there is a court, and there are plaintiffs who, for example, believe that the actions of certain people, individuals, organizations, including creative ones, contain elements of administrative or criminal crimes. And these plaintiffs have the right to appeal, including decisions made by the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the prosecutor's office and even the court. In relation to other incidents that you are talking about, I don’t know how they will act. It's within their right. The state can do this, and other participants can do this too.

V. Fadeev: Dmitry Anatolyevich, let me return to social problems. Another pressing problem is the price of medicines. Cheap assortment is being washed out of pharmacies. This is a phenomenon of recent years. It is profitable for manufacturers and traders to work with expensive medicines. Even if we talk about the list of vital medications, the markup is fixed there, and, of course, it is also beneficial for them that the medicine be as expensive as possible. This is a major issue, and this is a topic that relates to the problem of poverty that you spoke about. What measures are being taken here?

D. Medvedev: This is truly an important topic; it concerns absolutely all people in our country, because everyone takes medications one way or another. We talked about control. This is an area where state control must be unrelenting and constantly strict. Who is doing this? This is done by the Federal Antimonopoly Service as a whole within the framework of state regulation. Now, given the fact that we have a market economy, of course, we do not fully regulate drug prices, but we make sure that these prices are balanced. And this is the most important task of the state, the Government and the Federal Antimonopoly Service.

How to achieve this balance? There is huge money circulating there. This morning, on purpose, realizing that one way or another we will talk about this, I called the minister and asked what we count on in the future regarding financing, the purchase of medicines under the federal and regional line. This is approximately half a trillion rubles annually – federal and regional budget funds. They are through the budget and through the system of mandatory health insurance are coming. We must make sure that this money goes to work, that it is aimed at purchasing truly vital and essential medicines. This is the list approved by the Government. As the Chairman of the Government, I sign it. Now it consists of 699 titles. There were 400–500 items, and now there are almost 700. This is very important: the wider this list, the higher the availability of these drugs.

Second. It is very important to monitor the required assortment in pharmacies so that this does not happen: there is an expensive drug, but there is no cheap drug. And this is a matter for control authorities. The Ministry of Health, the Antimonopoly Service, and other organizations that are called upon to monitor this must definitely monitor this.

Third. It is very important that the drugs themselves are both high-quality and reasonably cheap, so that they are sold at prices acceptable to people. How to achieve this? It’s clear that everything bought with foreign currency is always more expensive. We have developed a certain belief that a foreign pill works better than a Russian one. Unfortunately, it is not groundless. A number of manufacturers did not act very nicely. It is imperative to bring order to the pharmaceutical market. In our country, approximately 70% of drugs in value terms are now purchased from abroad and only 30% from within the country. But the situation with respect to names is different: in our country, 60% of the names, the so-called international medical nonproprietary names, are purchased within the country and only 40% are purchased from abroad. If you take the list of vital and essential medicines, 85% of them are already purchased within the country.

Why am I talking about this? This is not just about supporting our pharmaceutical industry. It's just objectively cheaper. And it doesn't depend on fluctuations foreign currency and the relationship between the ruble and other currencies. This is the key task. This is import substitution, which we are engaged in and to which we must pay the closest attention.

Finally, the most important thing. It is necessary that all participants in this market behave responsibly. We have now decided to label the medicines differently and use different packaging. Questions immediately arose - they say this will lead to an increase in the cost of medicines and so on. We need quality, not counterfeit, drugs. We need a normal, modern pharmaceutical industry. We know how many problems and frauds there are. Therefore, we need to bring order to this market. Then pharmacies will have normal, cheap Russian drugs, no worse than foreign ones.

I. Poletaev: Dmitry Anatolyevich, allow me to get my daily bread, in the literal sense. Russia has had record grain harvests, including wheat, for several years in a row. Due to the increase in supplies from our country, prices are falling both on the world market and within Russia. This is a problem for farmers. Investment programs are being cut, jobs are being cut. Does the state plan to more strictly regulate the grain market? And how can we ultimately balance prices and the interests of agricultural producers?

D. Medvedev: Let me start by saying that we have achieved outstanding results. I just want to praise all farmers here. And ultimately, praise the measures we took to support the agricultural industry. 140 million tons of grain - grains and legumes - is a result that our country has never known, in any century, under any system, under any state. The result is outstanding. Now we need to manage this wisely.

We have become the largest net exporter of wheat and grains. This is capital, this is currency. And in principle, this can help our farmers. Therefore, if we reach an export level of about 45–50 million tons, and this harvest allows us to do this, in compliance with all the norms on carry-over stocks, so that everything is in order with the provision of bread and grain to all producers, this will solve many problems. This is the first.

Second. Of course, we must invest in deep grain processing. This modern technologies, this is the production of amino acids, this is simply a huge number of different additives that are used, among other things, to support livestock farming, for the development of livestock farming. This is the second one.

Third, it is very important that our logistics capabilities are brought into line with our increased grain production capabilities. That is, these are investments in ports, investments in roads.

And the fourth, but related to the third, is the tariff component. Taking into account the specific results that we have achieved this year, the outstanding harvest results, we have made a number of decisions, and will make more, to support farmers through the use of lower tariffs for rail transportation.

I. Zeinalova: Do we have enough carriages?

D. Medvedev: Enough.

M. Fishman: If possible, I will ask you about politics again. We are summing up the year. One of the results of the year: this year a lot of governors were replaced, about 20 replacements were fired and appointed acting governors. There was a group in the spring, then a large group in the fall. This is an unprecedented scale of replacements. At least I don't remember this. Among them there are many “Varangians”, that is, those who are not initially associated with the regions in which they are assigned. Among them, by the way, are deputy ministers in your Government. You probably know them well. So I'm curious what you think about this. In particular, I am concerned about this question: do not such large-scale reshuffles, which we are encountering for the first time, mean that these new governors are de facto assigned the status of a representative of the central government in the localities, despite their formal election? It seems like there are elections, but still?..

D. Medvedev: If we talk about the general trend, it seems correct to me. By the way, she did not appear now, not this year. She was also in previous years, and even in the previous period. We quite actively began these processes related to the rejuvenation of the governor’s corps, probably eight to ten years ago. Indeed, now it was a large group of people, relatively young, who had received new assignments. But I point out that for now they are only temporary. They still have to be elected. Some of them have already gained trust, including those very “Varyags” you are talking about. This is not a key factor, although, of course, when people vote, they always look to see whether they are theirs or not, whether they understand the problems or not.

I was in many regions during the period when the election campaign was going on, and I watched how appointees, who had not yet been voted for, worked. I was honestly pleasantly surprised at how quickly they immersed themselves in the local material. You know, there are some hesitations: here is a smart, sensible person, but how will he stand on the ground? Will he be able to speak with people in the same language, make decisions that are completely down to earth, and not talk abstractly about how the yield curve will rise? They fit in very well. Of course, everything will depend on them, their teams, on how they work. This also applies to former deputy ministers, and this also applies to other people.

Now regarding who the governor is. Let me remind you that the governor is not the president of the subject of the Federation in the sense in which we understand the figure of the national President, who is the guarantor of the Constitution.

In general, the head of a subject of the Federation, as a rule, or in 99 percent of cases, is the head of the executive branch. Therefore, de facto and de jure, they are participants in a large vertical executive power, headed by the Government, respectively, the government of the constituent entities of the Federation and those persons who make executive decisions in municipalities. They should not be taken out of this context. But, of course, the most important thing is the support of people. And now another group of people who have received similar appointments must prove their performance in these conditions.

I am not only the head of the Government, but also the head of the largest political party. I met with all the candidates and talked to each of them, asked (this especially applies, for example, to deputy ministers): a deputy minister is a very high position, at the same time you are responsible for a specific industry or sub-industry and in it you can be a leader, an absolute authority for someone, to make management decisions throughout the country. But here you will need to do other things. You have to sort out all sorts of controversial situations, deal with housing, monitor sewerage, water supply, gas supply. Are you ready for this? You're interested? And we must give them credit, they all say: yes, this is a challenge, this is interesting, we want to be useful to our country and a specific region.

Let's see what they can do.

S. Brilev: Dmitry Anatolyevich, I tried to remember where I myself went this year to visit the new governors. Tula, Yaroslavl, Ivanovo, Kaliningrad, Kirov, Samara, Novgorod, Ryazan, Perm - I can’t remember them all. But you know what the thing is? Of course, I’m not a boss, I’m an ordinary voter, a taxpayer, but still, as a journalist, I also see something. Rejuvenation has taken place, renewal has also taken place, but in principle the control system remains generally old. Our state is sort of like a federation, and management is to a certain extent unitary. Take the same inter-budgetary relations. In order to complete May decrees The president, the regions, including those I listed, went into debt. There are different mechanisms for solving this problem. But in general, in your opinion, if these debts are forgiven, then should they be written off? Or, perhaps, give the regions more independence, so that our essentially unitary federation becomes more of a federation? Although this is a dangerous thing. Not every region can handle this. It's a double-edged sword, I understand.

D. Medvedev: You see, without being a boss, as you said, you have already laid everything out absolutely correctly in the sense that there is always a double-edged sword here and you need to keep a balance.

Indeed, our regions are all very different. Moscow is one thing, and Chukotka, for example, is another thing. And in terms of scale, and in terms of population, and in terms of distance from the centers.

Second. All regions have their own projects. I am sure that the vast majority of these projects were created in order to help the region, help people, and develop the economy. In some cases, these projects were not very well thought out. They got into debt, including commercial debt, and borrowed money.

S. Brilev: Not necessarily according to the May decrees.

D. Medvedev: Not necessary. I'm talking mainly about investment debt.

I. Zeinalova: The May decrees were never implemented, and they ended up in debt.

D. Medvedev: It happens. They want to show how their investments are going well, but at the same time they do not monitor the budgetary sphere. All this is there. Therefore, the situations are different. How are we going to resolve these situations? Or how to help the regions? But they will still have to help. Despite the federal nature of the state, we still bear full responsibility - I mean the federal Government - for how economic mechanisms work in the regions.

What do we have to do? Of course, you need to look at what kind of loans they are. And, if possible (we did this this year and last year), transfer part of the commercial loans to budget ones. This is definitely a help, because there is a different lending rate. We have already converted approximately 50% of these loans into budget loans.

Secondly, you can think about debt restructuring. And such decisions were made. In total, it was restructured for approximately 700 billion. This is also significant help.

Third, conditionally, is a system of subsidies, transfers, and support for the regions themselves. This year it is a little more than 600 billion rubles. All these measures taken together make it possible to contain the situation. But, of course, regional leaders must behave responsibly. And when they make decisions, they must first of all calculate their social obligations, and this is the most important thing: wages, benefits, some other payments that come from the regional budget, including, of course, what is due according to Presidential Decrees of May 7, 2012. That is, the development of our own social sphere, and after that - the development of the economy. Therefore, it is a matter of prioritizing. But we will help governors – both new governors and those who have been working for a long time – of course.

S. Brilev: But in principle, regions should be given more independence, do you think?

D. Medvedev: You see, this is another topic that I did not mention. We are now monitoring the so-called federal powers - in other words, what they can take away from federal powers and what they cannot. We need to look at how this relates to regional powers, because some regions say: yes, we are ready to take this too. They take it, and then they can’t fulfill it.

S. Brilev: Well, yes, we will have such an asymmetric Federation.

D. Medvedev: You see, the question here is this: we cannot have an absolutely symmetrical Federation, because if all our territories and lands were absolutely the same, then it would be easy, but they are very different. Economic opportunities are different. In Moscow, I say again, there are 15 million people, and in Chukotka or the Nenets District - 40-50 thousand people. Legally, the powers are the same, but we understand that they can be exercised in very different ways. And this all needs to be taken into account.

V. Fadeev: Dmitry Anatolyevich, let me change the topic. A technological revolution is underway in the world. We all understand this and watch, on the one hand, with great interest, but on the other hand, there is some tension, because all the key decisions, key research is not with us - they are in the USA and Europe. Already, I think China will soon catch up. Do we have any chance of returning to the top? We won't be late?

D. Medvedev: There are chances, but you can’t hesitate any longer - you need to jump on the moving and accelerating train. Because this train, to be honest, gained momentum first without us. In this sense, you are right. For a long time we were in a situation where we were forced to simply survive. This happened in the 1990s. In the 1980s, this was not given much attention at all. And only now have we begun to create the basis for our technological development. There is everything for this. There are institutions, there is money. Probably not fantastic, but still quite decent money, which is accumulated in various support funds. There are tools that have already been tested. And most importantly, there are people. We have a lot of talented people.

What's missing? There is not yet the ability to quickly transform technological innovations into working and commercially successful projects. This is where we are not doing very well. We are not very good at this.

V. Fadeev: This has always been the case, unfortunately.

D. Medvedev: Unfortunately, in this sense, we really cannot boast of any magnificent past, however, this can also be learned. There are other countries where they are very good at commercialization and much worse at inventing things. Copy something, draw something - yes. And it’s harder to come up with it yourself.

We, of course, need to learn this very commercialization. Both government efforts and business efforts should be focused on this. Business must invest in R&D, must invest in IT research, in modern technologies.

About ten years ago I had to, in fact, use a stick large companies drive there so that they plan some kind of investment. Because the companies are huge, the income is huge, and they have some tears for R&D... “Everything is fine with us. And we will buy everything we need from them.” And now we won’t buy from them anymore, and we haven’t conducted our research properly.

Therefore, this is indeed a task of exceptional importance. But I am sure that we have a chance to stand on par with the most advanced countries. We solved such problems in the 20th century, and we can now.

I. Zeinalova: I, perhaps, more than anyone here (after you, of course) was interested in cyber innovations. This topic has been going on for several weeks in a row, one thing after another. Maybe you saw that all over the world our computer scientists were being captured, calling them hackers, accusing them of hacking Google, PayPal, whatever. We won’t even say whether they are guilty or not, and yet... There is already such a thing as cyberwar. I understand that we will no longer buy some things, we will invent them ourselves, however, now people who are deeply “immersed” in the computer world, who have gone deep and are building this computer world, say that we must ensure our cyber sovereignty. In addition to ordinary sovereignty. That is, the war is waged on land, at sea, in the air, and now it can also be waged in cyberspace. You keep saying: the digital economy, labeling and the like, doctors will treat on TV... How can we ensure the safety of people who will still be under attack from the same hackers who don’t know what will come to mind?

D. Medvedev: Yes, this is a task on a global scale. Of course, it is better not cyber war, but cyber cooperation, which, by the way, we constantly encourage our partners in different countries to do.

Unfortunately, if we talk about international legislation, about conventions in the field of cybersecurity, in the sphere of regulating relations in the field of digital technologies, we are now essentially at the zero level. Humanity has not advanced anywhere, relatively speaking, since the period of the 70–80s of the last century, and the world has changed in the most radical way.

Cyber ​​sovereignty – how should it be understood? We must be self-sufficient, but not closed. Self-sufficient in the sense that we must have all modern cyber technologies that allow us to develop the economy. We have already talked about this today. Closedness is a harmful story, because we can thereby cut ourselves off and turn into a state that does not develop at all. We need to look for a balance here.

I.Zeynalova: Then they will pick up master keys for this closedness.

D.Medvedev: Then they will pick up the master keys and still do some nasty things. Regarding the reproaches that are being addressed to us. This is indeed a common theme now, a hackneyed song that is constantly sung to us, that in general all hackers in the world are agents of the Kremlin. It feels like this is all we do. This is a separate, mature global market.

I.Zeynalova: By the way, are they messing with us, these hackers?

D.Medvedev: Everyone climbs on everyone. Don't doubt it at all. Everyone is trying to keep an eye on each other. Therefore, blaming our country alone for this is ridiculous. Everyone understands this very well, but for some states it has simply become a way of solving internal political problems, a way of internal discord.

We need to make these decisions. We need to deal with serious things in the field of cybersecurity, and not yell that there are only hackers around from this or that country. What is meant is countering the terrorist threat. This is the real problem. Terrorists actually use modern technologies. This must be fought, and fought together, by all states that are faced with this. This is the first.

The second is all the modern digital technologies on which the world is built today. Therefore, I am sure that there are much more reasons for cooperation here than reasons for jealousy or suspicion.

I.Zeynalova: And how to protect... I understand that states cooperate, but they must also protect themselves from each other, no matter how friendly they are. There is a fork of interests.

D.Medvedev: Protection here is to have self-sufficient capabilities within the country - network ones, to control certain information flows. But, let's face it, there is no absolute protection that will last for decades or even years. Because for every measure related to cyber defense, there is always one trick or another. This is a competition that will continue in the world all the time, there is no doubt about it. We just have to be ready for this. The world has changed in this sense.

I.Zeynalova: How ready are we? What do they tell you, what do they report to you? You've done this a lot. How protected are we?

D.Medvedev: I will say this: we are protected now, taking into account various decisions - both open and closed, both monetary and legal - in principle, no worse than others largest countries. Moreover, we have a huge responsibility as the leading nuclear country, as the country with the largest territory, and as a permanent member of the Security Council.

S. Brilev: I would like to ask about the traditionally friendly Russian-American relations. There are a number of leading weekly programs here. A series of intersections between Putin and Trump in Vietnam occurred before the weekend, after which we sorted it all out in small details, guessing what kind of person Trump was, whether he changed some of his statements too much in a zigzag manner during the Asian tour. But we assumed, and you and Trump met two days later at a summit in the Philippines. There were handshakes there. You communicated. Dmitry Anatolyevich, what kind of person is he? Is it even possible to deal with him?

D. Medvedev: I communicated briefly, as happens at similar summits, and before me the President of the country had the same communication. I have already spoken about this: if we talk about the external impression, he is a friendly politician who wants to establish full-fledged contacts and perceives everything absolutely adequately. And we actually sat and discussed various issues during this dinner. He recalled our cooperation during the Second World War and said that this was important for both Russia and America. In this sense, contact is quite normal. I am sure, and President Putin also spoke about this, that everything is fine in his personal relationships.

The problem is not our personal relationships. This, of course, is important, but it is still a subordinate story in relation to the decisions that we make, in relation to the atmosphere that is created. But the relationship between our countries, between the United States of America and Russia, is very bad. I'd say she's disgusting. She is the worst, at least for the entire period that I remember. And I also remember Leonid Ilyich Brezhnev’s meetings with various presidents of the United States. And this, of course, is very bad.

S. Brilev: You have already mentioned that there are things that are used for domestic political reasons. That is, Russia is such a scarecrow, in fact, by mentioning Russia, all sorts of matters are somehow resolved. From latest news: Colleagues from the RT (Russia Today) television channel have been deprived of accreditation in the United States Congress over the past 24 hours, although how this affects national security is an absolute mystery. There were many accusations against Russia: you are to blame for everything. It's kind of strange though. How is everything to blame? Who was the first to add foreign agents to the lists? It has come to the reduction of diplomatic missions. In Washington they say that the whole point is about Russian interference in the elections, everything is rejected in Moscow. Do you think (personally - not personally, systemically - not systemically), the chance to improve Russian-American relations has been lost? There were hopes that under Trump things would be different.

D. Medvedev: Regarding guilt, this is a fairly well-worn topic of ours, and the question about the guilt of certain forces or states can be answered exactly as they usually say: the point is not who is guilty, but what to do about it. We have our own position, it is known to everyone. We do not believe that we acted in such a way as to damage our relationship. But that's not the point now. The question is exactly what to do. You say: is the opportunity missed? I think there is always a chance. The President of the country and colleagues from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs spoke about this, and I, of course, also spoke about this. The question is to start full-fledged communication on the most important, essential topics. Look: representatives of large American businesses come to me - we have a commission on foreign investment, there are 10-12 people from America, these are all the top officials of corporations that are worth hundreds of billions of dollars. Did any of them have at least some kind of political theme? They all say: we want to work, we want to work on the Russian market, we want to work with you. Business wants. If we talk about the human position, then I am sure that it is also very different from the policy that the Washington establishment is pursuing today and from which, by the way, President Trump largely suffers.

S. Brilev: This, of course, turns out to be a kingdom of distorting mirrors.

D. Medvedev: We have a feeling that a number of American politicians are trying to solve their own problems at our expense, trying to influence their President, precisely by playing out this very Russian map. This thing is quite rare, because I cannot remember anything like this in previous history, except perhaps the 1950s, the period of McCarthyism, but even then it was not about settling scores with one’s own President.

I. Poletaev: Dmitry Anatolyevich, continuing the theme of the United States. The United States, strictly speaking, does not hide the fact that sanctions against Russia are intended, among other things, to replace our gas on the European market. In this regard, won't we remain in gas isolation? At the beginning of the year, the Americans announced a new sanctions package. Are we ready for it? In general, do we understand that we could find ourselves in the situation of countries that have been living under sanctions for decades?

D. Medvedev: To be honest, we spent the entire 20th century under sanctions. I have spoken about this many times; Western countries imposed sanctions against the Soviet Union and subsequently the new Russia - 10 times. If we talk about the famous Jackson-Vanik amendment, it was in effect for about 40 years. This state was no longer there, and this problem disappeared, but the amendment was in effect. Therefore, we lived under sanctions all the time. And now our partners are also trying to make these sanctions durable, that is, to cement them with the help of this law, to make them in such a way that even the President of the United States cannot lift them. Because according to the Jackson-Vanik amendment, let me remind you, the President had the final say; he could postpone the effect of this notorious amendment. Now the President does not have these powers, which we pointed out that this is, to a certain extent, a limitation even of the executive power of the President of the United States.

But God bless them, with these sanctions, we survived with them in the 20th century, and we will survive now. We have learned to do this, we have learned to overcome all these difficulties. In some ways it even helped us. The import substitution policy, quite obviously, would not have appeared in the form in which it is now being implemented without these new sanctions. It just hurts everyone.

The latest package is clearly aimed at limiting our gas options in Europe. Why? Here the position is completely cynical: we want to supply our liquefied natural gas to Europe, the Russians are hindering us with their pipeline gas, their so-called pipeline gas, so we want to squeeze them out. Absolutely shameless, even Europeans’ hair stands on end. True, not for everyone, because, unfortunately, our colleagues in Brussels also began to slightly stir up this situation by making decisions aimed at extending the so-called Third Gas Directive, the Third Energy Package, to our supplies. But let’s hope that reason will prevail in Europe and these gas projects will be implemented, because they are commercial in nature and mutually beneficial for both Europe and Russia.

S. Brilev: Dmitry Anatolyevich, in order to complete this international part, there is one story where we could learn. I mean interaction with the international sports community. The participation of our athletes in the Winter Olympics in Korea is under threat. WADA is somehow not convinced of the cleanliness of our athletes. The McLaren report is still on the horizon. What conclusions can be drawn from what is happening with the national team and how is the Government going to help our athletes?

D. Medvedev: Naturally, we are constantly looking for a way out of this situation, and my colleagues in the Government are doing this, and in general the entire Government is concerned about this in one way or another, and the President has repeatedly dealt with this and expressed his position. There are two things to separate here. The first is our position on doping. It remains the same and unequivocal: we are against the use of doping. We have certain problems with this, and we will fight against it, which in no way calls into question the brilliant result of the Russian Federation at our Winter Olympics. It was an honest and absolutely objective victory, and no foreign forces will ever convince us that everything was done somehow wrong. Everything was achieved due to the efforts of our athletes and due to the atmosphere of support that developed in Sochi at that time.

This is one side. And the second side is that you say: WADA is not convinced. No one wants to be convinced of anything! This topic has become absolutely political, absolutely autonomous, and doping here has 30% of this topic. Everything else is political manipulation.

Unfortunately, this topic has become the basis for promoting another anti-Russian campaign. Moreover, we feel that its peak should come at a certain political cycle in order to show how bad things are in this sense. There is a definite, quite obvious intention in this. They love sports, they support our athletes. If you take our athletes and cut them off, it naturally causes a feeling of disappointment in all of us. Therefore, in its purest form, in my opinion, this is now politics. If there were any doubts before, now these doubts are gone. This also applies to the McLaren report. There are other characters there, like Rodchenkov, who publishes some diaries. But this, it seems to me, is more of a psychiatric problem. It is enough to look at these diaries to understand that this citizen needs, first of all, psychiatric help, and not any other. But we will leave this aside. Overall, this situation is very disappointing.

I. Zeinalova: But they are already aiming at the World Cup. Rodchenkov begins to write about this too.

D. Medvedev: This is politics. This has all become a tool of political manipulation. We, of course, will counteract all this at all levels of communication, in all organizations, but we need to understand that this is a political campaign - not a sports campaign, not a campaign related to countering doping - that has been launched against our country, and that’s the only way to evaluate it .

V. Fadeev: Dmitry Anatolyevich, the presidential elections are just around the corner, in March next year. Vladimir Putin has not yet announced whether he will go to the polls. You are the chairman of the United Russia party. Surely the party is discussing the idea of ​​the party taking the initiative to nominate Putin for president. Surely? This is the first question.

Second. You are the leader of the ruling United Russia party. Perhaps you are ready to stand for election?

D.Medvedev: Regarding candidates for the position of President, everything will be clear very soon. You know the position of United Russia and my position very well.

If the current President of the country, Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin, nominates his candidacy or agrees to its nomination, our party, unconditionally and unequivocally, and I personally, as party chairman, will support him in this in every possible way, because we believe that he is a successful President who leads our country. In this regard, everything must be done within the framework of the law. Who will nominate ultimately depends on the candidate himself. Whatever method the candidate chooses, this method, for example, will be supported by United Russia. If Vladimir Vladimirovich agrees to nominate himself in this sense and if he needs such support, then, of course, United Russia will, without a doubt, provide this support.

As for me personally, I don’t see myself in this capacity in the current political season, but I will continue to work.

M. Fishman: If Vladimir Putin goes to the polls, you support him and he wins (few doubt this), then by the end of the next term he will have served as President for a total of 20 years. And in between - four years as Prime Minister. Brezhnev, whom you mentioned, was less in power in the end than Putin would be. My question is obvious: does this not violate, from your point of view, the principle of alternation of power, which is enshrined in our Constitution?

D.Medvedev: It seems to me that all kinds of violations are possible or can be assessed in this way only if we are talking about violations of the law. A situation where a person wins directly and unequivocally due to the absolute support of the population cannot be considered a violation of the law if all this happens within the framework of the current Constitution and within the framework of the current legislation. This applies to what you are talking about and to various other countries. Suffice it to remember what is happening in Germany, where the same political force, the same candidate, can be the head of government for decades. But, in fact, the head of government there is to a large extent the head of state, because all the powers are there, and no one doubts it. Therefore, everything that is within the framework of constitutional powers and is based on democracy, on the opinion of the people, complies with the law. And that's okay.

M. Fishman: In Germany the deadlines are shorter.

D.Medvedev: It's only the beginning!

M. Fishman: Alexey Navalny. The audience of my colleagues probably knows him less well than our audience, because they don’t allow him on central television channels, and they don’t allow him to participate in elections either. But in March of this year he released an investigative film dedicated to you. You reacted very sparingly to this then, you said “compot”, “nonsense” - in such terms, despite the fact that there was quite a large public outcry, people took to the streets. And I, of course, want to ask, maybe you want to add something to this?

D.Medvedev: No. I said everything when I described everything that was done there during one of the interviews. I have no other comments. Why should I comment on this? The more you comment on all sorts of idiots and crooks, the better for them, that’s what they’re counting on.

M. Fishman: Continuing the topic. As a lawyer, why didn’t you file a lawsuit then?

D.Medvedev: Precisely so that such people are not promoted. Because the creation of opuses like these films pursues one simple political goal - to promote oneself and create tension. And given the characteristics of these citizens who are doing all this, why should I create additional advertising for them? There is no point in this. If they are crooks, then they are crooks.

But this does not mean that people and organizations affected by this film do not have the right to protection. If you have been following the information clearing, recently there have been several courts on different lines, where the information contained in this opus was recognized as untrue, recognized as false and subject to refutation, as well as elimination from information sources. Now the question is how to implement these decisions. The creators of such opuses bear the responsibility for the execution of judicial acts. And they entered into legal force. If such execution does not occur, administrative or criminal liability must arise.

By the way, I believe that we need to think about strengthening administrative and criminal liability for failure to comply with court decisions. I think that both the Government and the State Duma deputies could be concerned about this.

I.Zeynalova: Dmitry Anatolyevich, everything that is being discussed now is viewed through the prism of elections - sports, security, pensions, the budget and the like, the elections are still somewhere in the subcortex. Let’s not speculate who will be the next prime minister or who will receive portfolios, because according to the Constitution the President will be obliged to dismiss the Government and recruit a new one. Now, after five and a half years of working at the head of the Government, in the abstract, for some abstract prime minister after the 2018 elections, you can summarize how to make this Government more efficient and distribute responsibilities in such a way that it works without duplicating itself, without missing any steps. then the industry? Because sometimes it seems that somewhere there are two people, and somewhere there are none.

D.Medvedev: You know, giving advice is not a very rewarding task. The structure of the future Government will be determined by the elected President. If you ask me about the structure of the current Government (it has actually been working for quite a long time, five and a half years is, to a certain extent, a long period), I cannot say that it is ideal, but at some point it was adopted by the President, Government as quite optimal. But we changed it. Let me remind you that we created some ministries, such as the Ministry of Crimea, and then abolished them when we considered that the tasks had been completed. We simply disbanded individual ministries - such as the Ministry of Regional Development, transferring its powers to other places. But at the same time, they retained the ministries for Caucasus Affairs and the Development of the Far East. This is all work that needs to be felt, no matter who is doing it in the Government, no matter who heads the Government, how comfortable it is to work. Let me remind you that we had different governments, some had one deputy prime minister, and some (in modern Russia) had 12 or, in my opinion, even 13 deputy prime ministers. To say that one is always better than 13, or vice versa, is wrong. The question is how to distribute the load.

Naturally, I have my own idea of ​​how the Government should work. Probably, we failed to do something, there is probably something to do in terms of the structure of the Government, optimization technological processes. The same digital agenda is also facing the technologies in which the Government operates. This is completely obvious. The paperwork that we all create is, indeed, largely time to be replaced by modern digital management methods. This is not easy to do. Government is the highest executive agency, and a number of decisions we make take effect immediately and have seemingly quiet consequences, but the results can be tectonic. Therefore, you need to act very responsibly.

I. Poletaev: Dmitry Anatolyevich, now, looking back, what is the most difficult challenge for your Government? Could it be cheap oil, sanctions, something else? And did the Government adequately respond to it, to this difficult challenge?

D. Medvedev: I will answer you briefly. The hardest challenge is both of these challenges. Simultaneously. Never in the history of our country has there been a dramatic collapse in oil prices and the introduction of sanctions. It was either one or the other. I’m not even talking about the structure of the economy – it was and remains imperfect. And this challenge was to a certain extent unique.

Let the citizens of our country evaluate how we dealt with it, but it seems to me that a number of the decisions we made turned out to be absolutely adequate. And even the exit from the recession turned out to be somewhat faster than many imagined, not to mention the fact that the drawdown was significantly lower than, for example, in 2008 and 2009. Then our GDP and industrial production fell by 8%, and during this period only by 3%. However, it is clear that more could probably have been done.

I. Zeinalova: So you are satisfied with the work done?

D. Medvedev: You can never be happy with everything. We should always have a reasonable amount of skepticism in all decisions we make. This is absolutely true. And this is advice to any government.

S. Brilev: Dmitry Anatolyevich, then the last thing. Do you like being prime minister yourself? In general, I seem to like it. How do you see your future? We've been beating around the bush, but I'll still ask this question.

D. Medvedev: I was once thinking about these topics. And I will answer in approximately the same way as I answered once, because this is an absolutely sincere answer. I have always (probably been lucky in my life) liked what I do - both when I was a student, and when I was a graduate student and a young teacher, and when I began to practice law and began to deal with some business issues. And after that - when I was called to Moscow and I began to work in the Presidential Administration, then as the head of the Presidential Administration. Then he went to work in the Government, then was elected President of the country. And now I work as Chairman of the Government. This is all extremely interesting work. It is, without a doubt, a huge challenge and, on the other hand, it brings satisfaction. In this regard I am enough happy man because it's a very interesting job.

By the way, in order to end not with questions addressed to me personally, but with some familiar words... This is approximately the 10th time we have met in this format. Today, however, is the last day of autumn, but the New Year is definitely just around the corner - active celebrations have not yet begun, but Christmas trees are already appearing here and there. People are starting to prepare for the New Year holidays. Therefore, taking this opportunity, I would like, dear colleagues, to sincerely congratulate you all on the upcoming New Year and congratulate all citizens of our country, wish them happiness and health.

S. Brilev: Thank you very much, happy upcoming! This concludes the annual “Conversation with Dmitry Medvedev” program. All the best and see you soon.

D. Medvedev: Thank you.

During the program “Conversation with Dmitry Medvedev,” the Prime Minister of Russia summed up the results of 2018 and announced forecasts for 2019. The program aired today at noon on 5 TV channels, as well as on social networks. The Prime Minister answered questions from TV presenters Pyotr Tolstoy (Channel One), Sergei Brilev (Russia 1), Irada Zeinalova (NTV), Ilya Doronov (RBC) and Irita Minina (Tomsk Vremya).

The outgoing year, despite the well-known “difficulties and costs,” has become quite positive for the Russian economy, the head of government said. “The growth rate for 10 months of this year is approximately 1.7%. We were counting on this figure. Yes, it is small, however, growth continues, and this growth, plus or minus, corresponds to what is, for example, in European countries", said the Prime Minister. Despite sanctions pressure, Russia increased its foreign exchange reserves in 2018, which grew by approximately $30 billion, Medvedev noted.

The Prime Minister of the Russian Federation noted the high growth rates of agriculture, which ensured food security in the country and increased exports of products.

“Agriculture, which was always called a “black hole” in the 90s... now feeds our entire country, we have resolved the main positions on food security, and we supply grain and other types of goods to world markets. Our country, indeed, is destined by heaven itself, as they say, to feed the entire planet, and we will try to do this, because this is a good export product, not to mention our own capabilities,” said Dmitry Medvedev.

The final annual inflation will be about 3.5%, the Chairman of the Cabinet said.

“In addition to the surplus, I cannot help but note the low inflation. This is generally a recent achievement. And this year, in all likelihood, we will reach a figure of 3.5%. In any case, we are within the 4% control that we set for ourselves several years ago,” said the Russian Prime Minister.

“Inflation targeting, that is, setting an inflation target, we have achieved this. And this allows people to simply plan their expenses,” the head of government noted.

The authorities managed to reverse the trend of falling household incomes. According to objective statistics, the growth of real wages amounted to 7.6%.

“Sometimes this 7% is a small amount... We understand that 7% for a lot of money is one thing, and 7% for a relatively modest salary is another thing. But there is growth, and this is very important for the economy as a whole and a particular person in particular. This means that we have reversed the trend of falling income. This was the worst, most dangerous thing for the country. The most socially rocking circumstance, the most unstable circumstance,” the Prime Minister noted.

The head of government said that the cabinet of ministers is now preparing a plan to reduce poverty in the country. This document contains many positions, including support for those in need, continuation of the course of increasing salaries individual categories, support for large families, the Prime Minister noted.

According to Dmitry Medvedev, National economy can develop primarily through its own investments. The head of government urged to continue to “rely on yourself.” Russia must first of all “focus on its sources of development,” Medvedev emphasized.

The Prime Minister noted that many European and American companies continue to invest in Russia, but the authorities of the United States and some EU countries are trying to limit these investments.

The Prime Minister of the Russian Federation expressed confidence that all 12 national projects will be implemented, noting that there is money for them.

“Ten years ago, the first national projects appeared, I actually oversaw them in the government then, there were four of them. These were also the most important projects. Please note: now there are 12 of them and their line covers all areas of our life from roads to housing, medicine, education, social spending. Everything that is relevant for the development of the country went there. I believe that these are very ambitious goals, as Vladimir Vladimirovich has already said, but at the same time I am absolutely sure that we can do it. There is money,” said Dmitry Medvedev.

S. Brilev: Hello, dear TV viewers! On behalf of the media holding - the organizer of this program, I welcome you on the air of the TV channels "Russia 1", "Russia 24", radio stations "Vesti FM" and "Mayak". The annual program “Conversation with Dmitry Medvedev” is on air.

Hello, Dmitry Anatolyevich!

D. Medvedev: Good afternoon Hello!

S. Brilev: Dmitry Anatolyevich, you know all my colleagues well, but as a broadcasting channel I would like to allow myself to ask the first question.

The year has been difficult, to put it mildly. The government has developed an "anti-crisis plan". But besides the fact that he played his role, whether he works, of course, requires a remark. Once every three months we hear that the bottom has been passed and the rise has begun. The rise begins, then stops, then some new trends begin. What do you feel: is the “anti-crisis plan” working, no?

D. Medvedev: The situation is truly difficult, although let me remind you that our recent years have not been easy. This is the current international situation and our domestic situation. If we talk about my assessments, I can say that the “anti-crisis plan” worked. It allowed us to withstand the most difficult period of this year, and in almost all areas that we outlined for ourselves as the most important, this plan brought results.

What I mean? After all, what was our task? Stop the decline in production, stop the decline of the economy. Now, based on the data that the Government has and the Ministry of Economic Development has, I can say that the decline in the economy and the decline in production has been stopped, and we proceed from the fact that next year we will already be growing. This is the first.

The second thing I would like to say. Of course, the most important task of any “anti-crisis plan” is to prevent people’s living standards from slipping. How successful this was, of course, is for our citizens to judge, but I would still like to note that we were able to implement the most important measures, including indexing the insurance part of the pension, and indexing it by the entire amount of inflation. As a result, pension accruals and pension payments for people who receive pensions have not depreciated. This is very important given the fact that this kind of indexing in practically economic crisis very few countries go. We did it.

The third thing I would like to say and which, in my opinion, is extremely important from the point of view general condition affairs in the economy. Of course, this is support for the financial system. Because we can talk for as long as we like about the fact that we need to deal with the income of each individual person, we need to try to index payments, but if the financial system fails, if banking system collapses, then that's it, then the pipe. We have supported our financial system, and the banking system is working normally. At the same time, I cannot accept the reproaches that are sometimes heard. They say: you helped the banks, and the banks are so and so, they have a lot of money and everything else. But if banks rush into the abyss, if they collapse, then the entire economy stops. People who remember the crisis events of 1998 and some other periods know this very well.

We were able to support our industry and Agriculture. We have a number of programs running. After all, where did the crisis hit first? In the most sensitive areas, such as the automotive industry. We invested money in our auto industry, and now, despite the decline... There is a decline, that’s true, but still it is not as it was originally expected. Agriculture. In general, the situation here is quite good, because this year we will get from 2.5 to 3% growth in agriculture, and this is in conditions where we have a number of restrictions, primarily financial. This is why I believe that the “anti-crisis plan” worked. A separate question is whether this plan should be extended into the future.

E. Osetinskaya: Dmitry Anatolyevich, next year’s budget seems very optimistic, and the price of oil is included in it by 10 dollars higher than it is now, and inflation is two times lower than it is now, and growth versus decline. Don't you still think that this is an overly optimistic plan? Do you have a plan B and how do you plan to achieve this scenario that you have budgeted for?

D. Medvedev: It seems to me that according to current estimates, based on today’s forecast... I’ll explain why I say “today” - because in conditions of such volatility, as economists say, that is, such movements in economic development, of course, we have a forecast many times changed. So, given the current estimates and current forecast, I believe that this forecast, this scenario is quite realistic. We can indeed reduce inflation by half, to almost 6.4%, as expected, precisely because inflation has already slowed. You know that inflation has practically stopped in the last few months. This is the first.

Second. We are able to enter the trajectory of perhaps not confident, but still definite economic growth. Here the estimates vary, I won’t hide it. The Central Bank has its own estimates; they are slightly less optimistic than the estimates given by the Ministry of Economic Development. But even the most pessimistic estimates give about zero, and relatively optimistic estimates of economic growth - somewhere under 1%. This is not bad considering that, let me remind you, world economy It is also not growing at a very fast pace. In the European zone, growth is 1.5%, and this average height, some economies are falling. But our partners, for example such close partners as Brazil, have been in recession for 18 months. There is a very serious slowdown in the Chinese economy, that is, this is still a reflection of international processes. Therefore, of course, we are currently proceeding from a realistic scenario. But we would be bad managers if we didn't have, as you said, a Plan B and even a Plan C if necessary for such a situation. Of course, oil prices are not encouraging. We recently discussed this issue. Indeed, if we talk about the current trend in oil prices, it may be the lowest in the last 17 years. Let me remind you what has happened in recent years. After all, from the maximum that was quite recently, just a few years ago, when prices reached $150 per barrel, we have now descended to the level oil prices around 37-38 dollars per barrel. I mean the price of Urals, and not the price of Brent, which usually appears on all sorts of signs and on our computers. So, if we compare this oil price with the price of 1998, when there was an absolute minimum - about 9 dollars per barrel, I mean the Russian minimum, not Soviet period, That purchasing power dollar by that period had almost tripled. That is, we can consider that we are now at the lowest oil prices in almost 20 years.

Of course, it’s bad that our economy is so dependent on oil, but that’s its structure and we didn’t shape it. It has been formed over the last 60 years, and in five to ten years this is not done, changes are made in this way. Therefore, if necessary, if difficult events occur, if a completely negative scenario continues in the hydrocarbon sector, in the oil and gas tracks, we will have to make adjustments, and in this sense, the Government’s position will be absolutely realistic.

M. Fishman: Dmitry Anatolyevich, since we are talking about oil prices. It is clear that in the context of a reduction in the revenue side of the budget, the budget as a whole has to be cut. But I have a question about the budget structure, because over the past few years we have been observing a significant increase (relative) in military spending against the backdrop of a decrease in social spending. We are talking about education and healthcare. I would like you to comment on this. Are we talking about, if you like, a change of priorities in this sense?

D. Medvedev: Mikhail, I have slightly different feelings. Indeed, at some point we decided to increase defense spending. This is true. Moreover, this was done almost five years ago, and I believe that we did not miscalculate, that we did it absolutely correctly, because by that time, unfortunately, the state of our military equipment, and, in fact, the state armed forces, was significantly below the requirements. Now we have raised these expenses to the world level, and we have a task - to re-equip our armed forces with new weapons and new military equipment by almost 70% by 2020. And this task will be completed, there can be no doubt. Why? Because no country, not even the smallest one, can sacrifice security issues or defense issues. The country, perhaps the smallest in terms of population and territory, is obliged to plan significant funds for defense and security. What can we say about our country? We are the largest, largest country in the world, with the longest border. If we don’t have normal armed forces, we simply won’t have a country. This, in my opinion, is an obvious thing.

But I’m not talking about this now to say that we have increased spending on security and the armed forces and this is our main priority, the main priority, and everything else is subordinate to this. This would be a one-sided position. Indeed, at some point it had to be done.

As for social spending. Let's admit it directly and frankly: over the past 15 years we have had an accelerated growth in social spending. Yes, the prerequisites for this have developed - economic prerequisites: Oil prices became high, we could spend more. As a result, we have greatly expanded the scope of social obligations, very much. Suffice it to recall the salaries and pensions of the late 1990s, even those tied to foreign currency, and those of today - these are completely different figures. And we didn't reduce anything. Nothing was reduced! Not a single social obligation was abandoned. Therefore, the social budget in this sense developed practically according to the same scenario as the budget of the Ministry of Defense.

You spoke about individual segments: education, healthcare. Naturally, I understood that you would ask me about this. You know, yesterday I specifically looked at the numbers and spoke again with my fellow ministers. The budget of the education system - both federal and consolidated - is practically unchanged. It may change by one tenth of the size of GDP downward. Virtually unchanged. The health care budget for next year - both federal and consolidated - is growing. Not much at all, these are also tenths of GDP, but it is growing and not decreasing. Therefore, contrary to some reason, the existing position or even some myth that our social costs are falling and arms costs are growing, this is not the case. Our social spending is stable and not falling.

Another thing is that if conditions and circumstances allowed us, perhaps we would increase them. There is no possibility for this now. But I want to emphasize once again: both in terms of education and health care, the priorities remain the same, expenses remain the same as this year.

K. Pozdnyakov: Dmitry Anatolyevich, I wanted to continue the topic of healthcare, the health of the nation. On the one hand, it seems that we have begun to do more high-tech operations - this is a definite plus. On the other hand, quite a lot of information appears in the press with reference to certain departmental research institutes such as those of the Ministry of Finance about certain plans to introduce standards for conducting doctor examinations and calling an ambulance. Like, everything that is above the norm will be for money. What's this? Is someone encroaching on what is sacred, free medical care?

D. Medvedev: Nobody encroaches on the sacred. Whoever makes an attempt will be given a slap on the wrist and other parts of the body.

K. Pozdnyakov: They will have to apply now.

D. Medvedev: They will have to seek, quite rightly, medical help. But, of course, we must understand how this money is spent, so rationing must be mandatory. After all, free help for a person is only free at first glance. Naturally, it consists of what is called national wealth, due to those taxes and contributions that everyone pays - both individuals and legal entities, and it must be spent correctly, this part of the budget.

That's why we've introduced a guarantee of free medical care. What does this mean? That every person is guaranteed a certain set of medical services. And these guarantees must be strictly observed. Where they are trying to cut them off, this is truly unacceptable, and this requires the intervention of both the authorities, I mean the executive branch, and law enforcement agencies. This is certainly true.

But we must ensure that these guarantees meet modern requirements. You mentioned high-tech medical care. Of course, I can’t help but say this too. Once upon a time, perhaps you remember, I was involved in national projects, one of which concerned healthcare.

What did we do then? For the first time ever modern history In Russia they began to perform normal free high-tech operations using modern equipment. Since then, the volume of such operations has increased tenfold. Moreover, we have increased all this over the last, probably, seven or eight years, and now a whole range of high-tech medical manipulations and interventions are carried out free of charge, and there is no queue, not for all types of operations, of course, but for a number of them there is not even a queue. I think this is a very significant, simply radical change in the healthcare system, because it is one thing to simply pay for medicine (people do this anyway), and another thing to pay for high-tech medical care (this is terribly expensive). All over the world this is done, as a rule, through the system of compulsory health insurance or voluntary health insurance. But so far we are progressing mainly, naturally, through the compulsory health insurance system. This system works very well. A significant part of our people began to perform such operations in Russia, rather than travel abroad, because it is more expensive abroad, and all sorts of other problems exist. This is something that definitely needs to be preserved.

Please note that the President specifically said about this in his Address: that until the compulsory health insurance system is fully operational in terms of high-tech medical care (there you need to make some administrative decisions and simply launch certain economic processes ), we will be forced to finance these operations on the so-called VMP directly from the budget. Just take money from the budget and give it. I believe that this is the best guarantee that medical services will be available to the population.

The healthcare system is full of problems. There are also services that should be free, but they cost money. Extortions, bribes - this exists, we understand and see it all. But it's ours common task- cope with these processes. This is the task of the executive branch, law enforcement agencies, and the people themselves. They must understand that the more they comply with such requests, the more corrupt the system becomes. You need to complain, talk about what a basic medical operation or a basic medical service They are taking money from us.

S. Brilev: Complain to whom, where?

Dmitry Medvedev: Well, where can I complain? Naturally, in higher authorities. These are departments and health departments in the regions. The fact that a specific doctor or a specific clinic, a specific hospital is trying to commercialize these services. It will help, no doubt about it.

I. Zeinalova: Dmitry Anatolyevich, Minister Siluanov, at a meeting of the Federation Council, stated that next year will be the last when the Government will be able to take advantage of reserve fund to compensate for the budget deficit. Aren't you worried?

D. Medvedev: Siluanov’s words should inspire some concern, but we are reasonable and adequate people. The task of the Ministry of Finance is to a certain extent to stir up fears and exaggerate. I'm talking about this directly. Why? Because if the Ministry of Finance does not do this, then no one will do it. The Ministry of Finance is the last frontier, therefore any Minister of Finance, no matter what his last name, is obliged to always dramatize the situation. And it is right.

As for our reserves. Let's be honest, why did we create them? We created them so that in a situation like the current one, we could spend them, and not just sit like this and say: “Well, yes, well, it’s hard, but we won’t spend it. Let’s shrink even more, deny ourselves everything and spend We will not have reserves." Well, why do we need such a position? Naturally, we spend it, but we spend it wisely. We have calculated: indeed, these reserves are finite, but if events develop based on the forecasts that we have, these reserves will allow us to survive the most difficult period in our economy. This is the first.

Second. As soon as an opportunity arises (and there were such opportunities even during this year), reserves must be replenished. We have quite a high volatility of the ruble exchange rate; as soon as opportunities arise, the Central Bank buys additional currency - in fact, it is engaged in reserves. We will continue to do this, therefore the task of the Government, the task of a competent Government - and I believe that we have just such a Government - is, on the one hand, to spend reserves, and on the other hand, to prevent a situation when we find ourselves with empty pockets. And Mr. Siluanov stands guard over this.

I. Zeinalova: And it scares us.

D. Medvedev: And it scares us.

M. Fishman: When he says that we will someday have to face a choice - either introduce new taxes or cut social spending, is he just scaring us a little?

I. Zeinalova: The same bad guy.

Replica: Let's talk about taxes specifically.

D. Medvedev: First of all, Irada, you are right. There must be both bad and good guys in the Government. We have assigned all the roles in advance, there is no doubt about it. I'm a good guy.

S. Brilev: Oh, can I ask a good guy a question, Dmitry Anatolyevich? In particular, about taxes, since we started talking about them. Well, we know from the example of Mr. Depardieu how the stories with taxes on luxury housing and luxury end: he moved to the Russian Federation.

D. Medvedev: And not only him.

S. Brilev: And they come, in particular, because of the 13 percent tax. And here the question is not from the rich, but from the middle class, which, of course, is following with some trepidation other discussions in the Duma, especially among the left, about possibly introducing a progressive scale, moving away from 13%. What do you think about it?

D. Medvedev: Sergey, do you consider yourself to be middle class?

S. Brilev: Yes.

D. Medvedev: How do you feel about introducing “progress”?

S. Brilev: You are putting me in a strange situation. I have never participated in elections and do not intend to, and you are forcing me to give a political answer. I feel bad about this. I believe that 13% should remain.

D. Medvedev: Well, okay. In fact, yesterday I also conducted a mini-survey among my fellow ministers about our tax system, understanding that we will talk about this, including, perhaps, even addressing this issue - on progressive taxation. I believe that, firstly, the 13% income tax that we introduced in 2000 is perhaps what we succeeded in 100%. To us - I mean in in this case power that has existed since 2000: President Putin, the Government and other authorities who subsequently dealt with all this. This tax has taken us into a completely different league. Remember how money was paid in the 1990s (everyone worked here in the 1990s, they remember it very well): money, naturally, a significant part of the money, was paid in envelopes. After the transition to the 13 percent level, the gray zone is practically gone, all taxes are paid (I mean income tax). It is better to pay than not to pay. Well, why do we need to kill the chicken that lays such golden eggs for us?

Yes, there is a point of view, many left parties adhere to this point of view, that progress is necessary. What's the question? The question is the readiness of our society for progressive taxation and the readiness of our tax system. After all progressive taxation has advantages, because it seems to more fairly equalize the chances of everyone who takes part in dividing the public pie, those who participate in the formation of taxes, and those who then use public funds. So, in order to collect a progressive tax, significantly higher administration costs are required. Then we will simply have to force everyone to submit declarations, even in electronic form. Even if you have a very small salary, you will have to submit a declaration from both one place of work and another place of work. This will complicate things significantly.

And finally, the last thing, in my opinion. There are countries where tax evasion is a serious crime. We do not yet have this, as in many countries where it is simply impossible not to pay income tax or some other tax.

Therefore, a decision was made (it was supported by the President) that in the coming years we will not touch the tax system at all and we will not touch the 13 percent income tax in particular.

And finally, the very last thing. In order for those who earn more to somehow share their income... After all, what is income needed for? It’s rare that someone just sits on their capital and doesn’t invest it anywhere. Usually this is the purchase of real estate or cars. So, now we have expensive real estate and expensive cars that are taxed at a higher rate. And those who purchase expensive real estate will still share part of their income. I think this is the best approach at the moment. Let’s wait and see what will happen in five to seven years.

K. Pozdnyakov: Maybe we can touch on the issue of saving? Moreover, savings of this kind... Probably, this will be an absolutely popular question, since it is among the people that there are legends that officials, including former ones, have some incredible benefits, that all these benefits eat up the budget, that expenses for the state apparatus, Despite the stated decisions that they are being reduced, they are nevertheless growing to the detriment of other programs. Anything to squeeze here? And is this feeling correct?

D. Medvedev: There is a lot to squeeze, and the feeling is right. The feeling in this case should be that the costs of our state apparatus are inflated. The state apparatus in general is such a substance... As soon as you turn to the side... it has the property of immediately expanding. He lives according to well-known management laws. In my memory (and I have been on this for quite some time) public service) we have repeatedly made decisions to reduce the state apparatus, and the point is not that we did not implement them. We put them into practice, but then six months, a year passes - we need to add here. A new task, a new function has appeared - let's give it there. Or make a purchasing decision new technology, something else. As a result, these costs are rising. I believe that any government in any country must regularly make decisions to reduce spending on the state apparatus and cut off unnecessary things.

Plus, we still have some traditions that were formed in both the Soviet and post-Soviet periods. Let's face it, our officials are used to driving more expensive cars, for example, than officials in other countries, this is true. I don't think this is right. If you have income, buy a personal car and drive for pleasure, but state cars should be of a normal middle class, not an exclusive line.

We have decided to reduce our ministries that belong to the government block. Regarding the security forces, this is, firstly, a separate decision, it is made by the President, it is related to security, although there are decisions there too. So, in the government department, we decided to reduce the staff by approximately 10%, starting next year. This is not the first time, simply because of what I just said. Naturally, we will follow through with this decision.

In addition, a whole type of expenditure on the maintenance of the state apparatus is being reduced, decisions are being made in other areas, including, by the way, even issues pension provision and vacations of civil servants.

At some point we also got together like that, and I noticed.

I say: colleagues, look, our civil servants rest more than other categories of the population. Let's be honest: do we have significantly more harmful work? You can approach this in different ways. The work is difficult, but to think that there is some special specificity here and that civil servants should rest, for example, more than other public sector employees - I don’t see such specificity here, to be honest. And we decided to shorten our vacations. Probably, some of my civil servant colleagues did not thank us for this, but in general this is fair. I think this is correct.

Well, about the regions. Because I have now taken the blow, as they say, on myself, now in relation to the regions. In the regions, there really is a decision on the payment of all sorts of bonuses and on the maintenance of the state apparatus - former senior officials - at the expense of local regional budgets. This is a matter for the region. So I believe that the region should honestly admit to its citizens, that is, regional leaders. If they think that they had an absolutely outstanding leader of the region, they need to come out and honestly say: we want to leave him a lifelong allowance, a car, a dacha. And let people react to it. If they say: yes, we think he did a lot, then let him stay. But if people are still against this, then such benefits should be reduced, because these benefits, naturally, come from the budget. We will give recommendations to the regions on this. By the way, yesterday I discussed this topic with colleagues who are engaged in expert examination through our Popular Front; they have been poking around at this for quite some time. I think that is absolutely correct, because order needs to be restored here, but I emphasize: this should not be dictated from Moscow, this should not be done by the President or the Government, but let the regional authorities themselves take the liberty, come out and say: we want to preserve or we want take off. Then it will be normal.

I. Zeinalova: Yes, harmful production. Let them decide for themselves, of course. I'm talking about money again. Last year we met...

D. Medvedev: People always ask me about money, Irada.

I. Zeinalova: And I'm talking about big money. Last year we met, the dollar, as you remember, was breaking a record. It was an incredibly, even psychologically, difficult situation.

D. Medvedev: This is true.

I. Zeinalova: This week there is nothing to please again. And everything is clear, it’s the end of the year... But the dollar is again under 70. Is this the limit? And for the Government, what course is comfortable for budget formation and economic development? What to expect?

D. Medvedev: Irada, you raised a very correct question, and it’s very good that you remembered our conversation a year ago at the same table. Indeed, then, let’s be honest, the mood was much more alarming among everyone, even among members of the Government and, naturally, representatives of the Central Bank. We, of course, understood that this process could not be endless, but this very bottom of the course and the boundaries of the corridor still needed to be found. Everything has stabilized. Indeed, the ruble has moved to a completely new state; it is now in free float. And this is good, because no one dictates what the ruble should be. As soon as you dictate, it means that the rate is inflated, and if the rate is inflated, it can collapse at any moment. This happened both in the Soviet period and in the post-Soviet period. That's why our ruble floats. But, what to hide, it is very strongly tied to oil revenues and very strongly tied to the price of oil. I was just talking about this. However, I would like to say that our oil prices, indeed, in this sense, are now at their lowest level, so it seems to me that, after all, the ruble quotes have now slid down because of this. And it is unlikely that if there is some rebound in oil prices, these quotes will remain at the current level. Although forecasts are a thankless task. Nevertheless, any increase in oil prices affects the ruble exchange rate, and people have adapted to this. Therefore, in the forecast and budget for next year, we included an average exchange rate of about 63 rubles per dollar. In all likelihood, the ruble will remain somewhere within these boundaries. But it is obvious that various factors will affect the state of the ruble. In addition to oil prices, I would like to remind you that we have been in conditions for quite some time now when the largest economic countries, the most important financial markets are closed to us. That is, we live only due to own sources development. This is bad, but it is also good, because for the first time we learned the value of our own economic opportunities. After all, how did we behave? We - I mean the authorities in the country in the 1990s, and even in the 2000s. If anything, we immediately turned to Western borrowing, and this was done mainly by commercial institutions (banks, large commercial companies), and due to this they replenished the liquidity deficit, received foreign exchange sources for concluding import contracts, and so on. Now there is none of this, but we continue to live, we are even developing. We probably live worse than we would like to live - this is true. But, on the other hand, we now understand the internal resources of the Russian economy. Our economy, and this is indeed a medical fact, has proven its self-sufficiency. Let's face it, not every country has a self-sufficient economy, some countries are not able to live without external assistance, but our country is certainly capable of living and developing even in such conditions, although there is nothing good about it.

M. Fishman: It sounds encouraging, of course, but I’ll continue about money. You said, not without pride, that the Government is keeping its obligations regarding the insurance part of the pension. Great, but already during the second year decisions are made to freeze the funded part; on the one hand, this undermines confidence in the very idea of ​​personal savings for old age, if you will, to which the state seemed to subscribe. This is on the one hand. On the other hand, we have been constantly discussing the issue of raising the retirement age lately. It appears that these two issues are related. There are economists who argue that this is both necessary and inevitable, and in this sense you want to understand what your plan is. What about funded pensions and raising the retirement age? What are you going to do?

D. Medvedev: This is what I want to tell you about the first and second parts of the question. I think that if they are connected, it is still very indirect. About the savings part. Indeed, for several years in a row we have made the decision to freeze this very storage part or storage element. Do the interests of people who are part of the savings system suffer? There are different points of view on this matter. I will voice the one that seems absolutely fair to me: they do not suffer, because the freezing of this very savings element does not affect the total amount of money that people will receive in the event of retirement, nor the current fulfillment of pension obligations. Moreover, we practically distribute the entire accumulation resource through the distribution part, through the normative part of the pension, and people receive everything they should receive. That is, now they receive a full pension, and in the future they will receive it. Yes, this is also a necessary measure, of course, this does not come from a good life. This is connected with two points. Point number one: we first needed to prepare ourselves pension structures that manage the relevant part of savings, that is, these same non-state pension funds, so that they enter, as they say, into the insurance system, so that they are transparent, understandable, so that there are fewer swindlers there. Unfortunately, there were enough of them there. And the second reason is purely financial. Indeed, we now need money for development. This is approximately 345 billion rubles, which we will be able to use to solve current urgent problems, including, perhaps, anti-crisis ones.

This is a temporary situation. I specifically said personally, looking at my colleagues in the Government, that we decided not to abandon the funded part of the pension and the existing pension system, because the pension system as a whole should be stable. We promised at the beginning zero years that there will be two elements, we must preserve them. In this sense, no revision took place.

Now regarding retirement age. This is a more complex topic. The first thing I would like to say is that no decisions have been made yet. There is a public discussion going on, it is known to every person. Its meaning is when it is advisable to retire from the point of view of a particular person and the interests of the state.

I will still remind you how our pension system developed, including the retirement age. This age was established in 1932. When I spoke in the State Duma, I looked at the statistics and was stunned: the average life expectancy in our country in 1932 was 35 years. This was due to famine, civil war, and so on, but still.

Life expectancy was 35 years, 55 for women, retirement 60 years. This is what the legislator proceeded from then. Since then, thank God, our situation has changed significantly, and in recent years our life expectancy has increased quite significantly. I think that this, by the way, is our great achievement. It may not be the same as in Japan or the Scandinavian countries, but still. Our women are generally great, they already live on average about seven years longer than they did just eight years ago, about 76 years. Men, of course, live less because bad habits, but they also live significantly longer than they did 10 years ago. And this is good. Therefore, if they still take care of their health, they will achieve approximately the same average duration life, like our dear women.

This is very good, this is the result of our work on the medical side, giving up a number of bad habits, the result of playing sports, and, of course, medicine. Therefore, we now have the right to ask ourselves this question: when can people retire? But there is no answer to this question. We need to conduct additional consultations, we need to talk with expert circles, and simply consult with the people themselves, because everyone’s priorities are very different. I will illustrate with one example. I’m talking about this because I also did this specifically myself. Retirement of officials. When we discussed this idea, for some reason everyone was sure that just tell the officials: retire at 65, and they will clap their hands. Nothing like this. Some people, some officials said: yes, we would like to work as long as possible (and this does not depend on the position), some people said: no, we would like to leave earlier, take care of our grandchildren, garden, go to the dacha, and so on. That is, this is a set of priorities. But we still decided to increase the duration length of service for civil servants up to 65 years of age, but to do this gradually. I believe that gradualness is precisely the recipe for increasing the overall duration labor activity in our country.

K. Pozdnyakov: The meaning of my question was rather this: is the Government perhaps too slow with this overdue measure?

D. Medvedev: It depends on the starting point. Those with a more liberal view of the economy say let's go faster. Those who take more conservative positions on this issue say: let's go slower. You see, I believe that one should neither rush here nor, on the other hand, be late. Of course, if we made a decision now, it would be very significant support for the budget. But let's think: are people ready for this? I'm not sure about that.

Therefore, we must make sure that all people understand their life priorities, so that they decide what to do, so that they choose a model of behavior for themselves after 55 or 60 years: whether they work or not. It is not for nothing that we recently also considered the issue of how to pay pensions to those pensioners who work.

Let me remind you that in Soviet times such people never received a pension. A person was put in the following conditions: either you receive a pension, or you go and earn money at work. Moreover, there was a very serious legal and economic justification for this. What is a pension? This is, in essence, a payment in connection with the loss of labor function, the ability to work. If your work function has not been lost, why should you pay a pension? This was the position of our predecessors, who, by the way, personified leftist views, leftists, I emphasize. We did not agree to this: our people now receive both a pension and a salary. The only thing we haven’t done is that we haven’t indexed the corresponding part of the pension for those who work, but it seems to me that in the current conditions this is absolutely fair. So it depends on the starting point. And I think that in the coming years, we will need to make this decision, after consulting with people.

S. Brilev: Dmitry Anatolyevich, according to the “yes-no” principle, I’m not trying to disrupt, as they say, our timing, but existing pensioners will receive an increase in pensions again next year, right? Everything is fine?

D. Medvedev: Certainly.

S. Brilev: This will remain in the plans.

D. Medvedev: If we talk about pensioners, then this is the position. Those who do not work naturally have the right to a pension and to indexation of this pension. We will most likely carry out this indexation in two stages, depending on the economic situation in the country. There is already normative indexation and indexation based on the results of work for the first quarter is possible. This position, which we, by the way, defined with United Russia, and I believe that it is absolutely fair, correct and consistent economic condition affairs in society.

S. Brilev: And untouchable.

D. Medvedev: As for working pensioners, they both work and receive a pension, but their pension is not indexed precisely because they work. I believe that this is also fair, because if they find the strength to work, then in any case these small amounts They don't need indexing that much.

E. Osetinskaya: Dmitry Anatolyevich, residents of Crimea pay a rather high price for the fact that they turned out to be citizens of Russia. Recent events have shown that Crimea is still isolated, and, in fact, life support systems are separate from the Russian Federation. When will this situation be eliminated and how? And most importantly, how much will it cost and to whom?

D. Medvedev: Elizaveta, I think that if we ask the residents of Crimea whether they are paying too high a price for integration with Russia, then the vast majority of Crimeans will say that they are ready to pay an even higher price, just not to return to the mess in which they were already literally just recently.

E. Osetinskaya: I think it depends on how the survey is conducted.

D. Medvedev: You know, no matter how you ask, a person will still answer you at the level of the first reaction. I’m not talking about manipulation, I’m just talking about an ordinary question that you ask an ordinary person in Crimea. I asked these questions to ordinary people, people who, as they say, meet on the street.

Regarding integration. In fact, Crimea has already been integrated into the Russian legal and economic space. This is exactly why we stopped the work of the Ministry of Crimean Affairs and switched to a different form of management. Crimea is an integral part of the Russian Federation both legally and economic sense. All pensions and benefits are paid there. The Russian legal framework exists and operates there, which, in my opinion, is much more perfect than the one that existed there.

But Crimea is truly vulnerable for two reasons. This is a colossal underfunding in the last, perhaps, 20 years, and, frankly speaking, in general, perhaps even in the post-war period. Crimea, which was a pearl 100 years ago, indeed during the Soviet period still did not develop the way we all would have liked. The last 20 years have been even worse. Therefore, there are problems there that have become aggravated due to the well-known position of the Ukrainian leadership. No matter what the Ukrainian rulers say, what happened to the world cannot be called anything other than genocide. This is a completely boorish, absolutely frostbitten, as people say, position, when social institutions, people whom, by the way, the Ukrainian authorities even respect as their own (they say: “Our people are there, and in general Crimea should return”), were cut off from the energy supply . What should I call it? It’s simply disgusting; there’s no other way to describe it. But, of course, we were preparing for this, to be honest. Both diesel engines and backup systems energy supply, so there was no collapse there. And even during the most stressful period, power supply to social institutions - healthcare and social service institutions - was provided. Quite recently, the first power supply line was launched. Soon we will connect the second line from the first stage, and in May - two more. As a result, we get 800 MW. This will completely solve the problems of Crimea.

But, of course, we won’t stop there. The plans include the construction of two new power plants by 2018 - in Sevastopol and Simferopol. In this case, Crimea will not become an energy-deficient region, but an energy-rich region. Therefore, in general, the situation there is completely normal in this regard.

And finally, the last thing: all this, of course, is not measured in money. I'm back where I started. This is a completely different story, and you know very well with what enthusiasm it was received in Russian society, Russian people.

E. Osetinskaya: My question was more about the economic component of this process. How much does all this cost?

D. Medvedev: Now regarding how expensive all this is. It's not cheap, of course it's not cheap.

I visited Crimea in previous years at the invitation of the Crimean and Ukrainian leaders, and I will say quite sincerely: I wanted to leave there as soon as possible. The region is beautiful, but everything is just dead, and the attitude is the same. It seems that initially the Ukrainian leadership believed that this was not their land and did not invest anything.

What they were doing? Naturally, they bought plots of land they loved there for themselves, built themselves dachas and did nothing else.

Neither roads nor electricity developed normally, nor the service sector. It’s probably not ideal everywhere, but let’s be honest: if you compare the Black Sea coast of the Caucasus and Crimea, we still have much better service on the Black Sea coast of the Caucasus. Therefore, there is colossal underfunding. We have created a whole program, we will, of course, implement it. This program costs approximately 700 billion. This is a lot of money for the country, but we will definitely implement everything, because Crimea is truly part of Russia, Crimea is a favorite vacation spot for a huge number of our citizens, our people live in Crimea. All money will be allocated, all programs will be implemented.

I. Zeinalova: Dmitry Anatolyevich, but about the Ukrainian debt of just 3 billion. Now it would be very opportune for us to return this money. I'm talking about money again.

D. Medvedev: They would ask about something good, everything about money and money.

I. Zeinalova: Ukraine owes us 3 billion, and as a result, we are going to pay it back, apparently, through the courts. We are offered to participate in installment payments on an equal basis with commercial creditors, despite the fact that the IMF has recognized this debt as sovereign. And the IMF, literally on the eve of our meeting, changed the rules of the game. What does it mean? Will we ever get our money back, and what is this strange process?

D. Medvedev: Irada, it is customary to say that hope dies last.

I.Zeynalova: Together with 3 billion?

D. Medvedev: Yes, hope dies last. But if you want to know my opinion, as probably a large number of our people, I have a feeling that they will not return them because they are swindlers. They refuse to return the money, and our Western partners not only do not help us, but also interfere with this.

Let's figure out what kind of debt this is. It arose in an absolutely legal, completely lawful way. The Ukrainian leadership (both the president and the government) turned to Russia with a request to participate in the acquisition of money, their bond loan, in order to solve current problems in the Ukrainian economy.

This appeal was from the Government of Ukraine to the Government of the Russian Federation. If two governments agree, then it is obviously a sovereign loan. Never in the entire history of the IMF, in the entire history of international economic relations, has this been called into question. Then suddenly... Okay, the new leadership of Ukraine, which is trying to get rid of all previous obligations and pursue some kind of its own line - God be their judge, I can at least somehow explain this. But what is surprising is that international financial institutions they began to say: well, this seems to be not quite a sovereign loan. That is, when two governments are not exactly a sovereign loan? Bullshit. Obviously, this is just a completely blatant cynical lie.

This is a sovereign loan. And if this is a sovereign loan and this loan is not repaid, that is, the loan is not fulfilled, what happens? There is a delay in payment or, as they say, a default, which always has direct and very unpleasant consequences for the country, for the borrowing country. What happened? The International Monetary Fund, despite the fact that it should reflect the position of the absolute majority of states, and not only borrower states, but also creditor states, for the first time in its entire practice, took and made a decision that is aimed at supporting the country’s economy - the borrower, contrary to the real circumstances of the case, contrary to existing legal agreements, only for political reasons. This seriously undermines the credibility of the decisions made by the IMF. I think that now the IMF will receive streams of requests from various borrowing countries with a request to provide them with the same conditions as Ukraine. How will the IMF refuse in this case?

All this is due to the fact that the international financial system is unfair. We have talked about this several times, I personally spoke at the G20 and G8 summits. The Bretton Woods agreements, which are many years old, once played their role, they do not work today, quotas are not redistributed, the largest economies such as China do not receive what they should have from the IMF. In other words, if we do not reform this system soon, trust in it will be undermined.

Now, regarding these 3 billion. Of course, we will not accept this, we will go to court, we will seek default on the loan and we will seek default on all borrowings of Ukraine. Where to go?

I. Zeinalova: Dmitry Anatolyevich, there seems to be a strangely lot of emotions around the numbers. On the 20th they must pay, we will go to court, and today Natalya Yaresko, the Minister of Finance of Ukraine, says that the Ukrainian government is experiencing incredible emotional pressure from the Ukrainian people not to repay this debt. What can you answer? There are numbers, signed documents. What's happening?

D. Medvedev: I don’t know what the Minister of Finance of Ukraine said, the main thing is that the Minister of Finance of Ukraine still understands what the Ukrainian people said, because, as you know, she did not communicate with the Ukrainian people for quite a long time, but lived in a completely different place. I don’t think that the Ukrainian people now care about the return of these 3 billion. The Ukrainian people are now thinking about how to live through this winter, which is still unknown how it will end for all of Ukraine. They are obligated to pay this loan. This is our strict position. And if the IMF and, by the way, our partners do not support us in this... And the President addressed us about this, I signed letters - we appealed to the European Union, to the Americans: help ensure that Ukraine pays its debt. We are ready to give them installments, as long as they pay. What did they tell us? We will not help in any way, we will not provide anything, which means only one thing: they do not believe in Ukraine’s solvency. They themselves did not give guarantees for Ukraine and did not allow first-class banks to do this, which could have done this for Ukraine if they had accepted the installment system, that is, so that they would return this loan to us within three years. In other words, they washed their hands of it and said: let Ukraine emerge on its own.

A very bad situation, and it is aggravated by the fact that, in addition to these 3 billion, Ukraine is on the verge of joining associate membership with the European Union. They chose this road themselves, let them follow it. This is the responsibility of those who made the decisions, these decisions are, at least partially, shared by the Ukrainian people - please. But they must understand that on January 1, the period that we specifically chose to fine-tune our economies will end, in order to connect existing rules in relation to the CIS consolidated trade zone with the rules of the European Union. We specifically agreed, as they say, between the three of us - the Europeans, Ukraine and Russia - that within a year we would go through such an adaptation period. What is done? Nothing! Absolutely nothing! During this year, we were told that we needed to meet, talk, combine positions, talk about wording. Specific issues were not dealt with: neither issues of sanitary and epidemiological control, nor issues of customs duties, nor issues of coordination of legal order, nor issues of coordination technical regulation- nothing.

But we need to understand. If they chose another free trade zone, another free economic zone, they must understand that the benefits of the free trade zone with Russia, that is, the zero tariff, will end, also for obvious reasons. They are purely pragmatic, they are absolutely not connected with politics.

We don’t know what goods will be delivered to Ukraine. These may be European goods, or they may be goods from third countries, and all of them will flow through Ukraine to Russia at a zero tariff. We will simply drown our market with this, so we told them: we will complete all this. If we don’t agree, we will end all this on January 1st.

What will this mean for Ukraine? Ukraine will receive the status of a most favored nation, that is, a country with which trade is conducted on the principles of most favored nation. Everything is good here, except for one thing: there is no zero tariff. This tariff will increase for different categories of goods from 3 to 9%, on average, perhaps by 6%. This is a serious story and they need to understand that.

In my opinion, there is almost no chance that we will reach an agreement. But we will stubbornly, until the very end of December, try to come to an agreement in order to go this route to the end and to demonstrate that if we agree on something, we will do everything. If this does not happen, we will introduce a new trade regime with Ukraine and impose special sanctions on Ukrainian food products, as we promised to do in response to their sanctions. We did not do this, again, in order to help them cope with this situation. economic problems so as not to aggravate Ukraine's problems. But we will be forced to agree to this if they do not agree with us on a free trade zone. Thus, these two circumstances will occur for Ukraine. I think this is a very serious, very significant point.

S. Brilev: Dmitry Anatolyevich, my next question is complex. News releases are filled with never-before-seen images: cruise missiles from ships, from submarines, the Tu-160, which is in combat use for the first time... Still, curious: how much does it cost?

D. Medvedev: It's a secret. I can tell you this: the use of Russian armed forces fits entirely within the budget parameters of the Ministry of Defense. They did not ask for increased defense spending.

S. Brilev: Not once in all this time?

D. Medvedev: The situation you are talking about has not been addressed.

S. Brilev: Great answer. Ask.

E. Osetinskaya: Dmitry Anatolyevich, it is a fact that counter-sanctions led to rising prices. The inflation that we had this year is partly the result of these counter-sanctions. Now we are introducing additional restrictions on imports from Turkey. It’s not a fact yet, but it’s quite likely that this will also lead to higher prices. Are you, as a Government, planning some kind of set of measures that would compensate for this, or do we just need to get used to the fact that a new reality has arrived, that prices will be higher, incomes will be at the same level, that is, we find ourselves in such a difficult situation.

D. Medvedev: In terms of income, our income will naturally depend on several reasons - both on how the situation develops on foreign markets, including, of course, on the oil market, and on our own abilities to change. Let's be honest: we now have oil revenues of 44% of total budget revenues. Is this a lot? A lot of. Was there more? There was significantly more. We had them at 50, and 60, and 70%, that is, the structure of our budget revenues is changing and changing towards a more favorable structure. We must consolidate these trends.

Now regarding the situation with Turkey and the impact on prices. I won’t argue with you, you’re right, the introduction of counter-sanctions to one degree or another influenced the situation with prices, maybe not fatally, because... We’ve somehow forgotten, but our food inflation at the beginning of 2008 was 13% , look at the data. And at the beginning of 2015 it was approximately the same, that is, we have already gone through such a period. There were no sanctions, I just draw attention to the fact that...

E. Osetinskaya: Do you mean that these are crisis phenomena?

D. Medvedev: Crisis phenomena. This is connected not only, I mean food inflation and rising prices, with sanctions, because this happened in 2008, although we did not close anything.

However, I won’t argue, it certainly had an impact. But subsequently we were able to regulate the general situation in trading network, we found new suppliers of goods, we really turned on the import substitution mechanism. In agriculture, import substitution definitely exists and is producing results. We were told that you will have empty shelves - there are no empty shelves, everything is in order on the shelves. Yes, prices have increased, some more, some less. There are more stores in the capital, less in the provinces, but nevertheless this is truly a fait accompli.

In relation to the situation with the Turkish market and Turkish supplies. You know, to be blunt, this is not a very large volume of supplies. We wondered what this could lead to. According to analysts, this could add approximately 0.2% or 0.2 to 0.5% to inflation. This is basically quite a bit. Moreover, such fluctuations are associated with completely different processes that exist in the food market. Therefore, there will not be a surge in prices precisely for this reason. But the state must control what food suppliers do, because this is always a very good reason to raise prices. Nothing has been closed yet.

By the way, I would like to draw your attention to the fact that our sanctions against Turkey on food - on tomatoes, as they say now - are not yet in effect, they are not in effect at all, they will be introduced on January 1. If prices rise somewhere, then this is only as a result of price collusion, and here the authorities and law enforcement agencies should hit the hands. And we will monitor this, including the Antimonopoly Service, which is specifically focused on this.

Therefore, I believe that nothing fundamental will happen in connection with these decisions regarding Turkey.

K. Pozdnyakov: I would like to continue the topic of import and export in part. From which sectors did expectations in terms of import substitution turn out to be too high, and from which sectors were they truly surprised? And in terms of exports, there is also such a turn, perhaps partly in the Turkish segment. Here we sell raw materials, oil, grain, and someone else’s uncle makes money from this. What about our processing industries then? What is the problem?

D. Medvedev: Kirill, you know, I proceed from the fact that even if such problems did not exist, they would have been worth inventing so that we could change our economy. These problems are objective, but we are so accustomed to living on exports that it was very important that there should be some kind of incentive to do this.

Which industries have demonstrated good elasticity and the ability to import substitution? First of all, agriculture, no doubt. Yes, this is not the result of the last year, I’ll be honest, this is the result of work within national project, subsequent to the national project state program. But in many respects we were actually able to replace foreign food products, and very often these are products of better quality - fresher...

K. Pozdnyakov: Not always at the right prices...

D. Medvedev: At different prices. In some places it is more expensive, in others it is actually cheaper. This also cannot be seen in one color. If we talk about the situation in industry, then, of course, it is more complex, however, I would like to draw attention to what is happening, for example, in several markets. Here's the chemical industry. Not everything is falling in our country; our chemical industry has grown by 6.5% this year, precisely as a result of the commissioning of new capacities and work on the Russian market. We no longer import a whole range of chemical products from abroad, but produce them in the Russian Federation, and due to this our industry has grown.

Pharmaceutical cluster. It grew by 13% this year due to the commissioning, in my opinion, of about 10 new pharmaceutical production facilities. Naturally, this is also import substitution. And this is also very important, because medications are an extremely sensitive issue. We must master almost the entire line of basic drugs in order to be independent of supplies from abroad. After all, of course, very often people say: imported drugs are better. It's a matter of feeling. But the most important thing is that they are more expensive, they are bought for foreign currency. And therefore, as soon as some surges occur in foreign exchange market, prices for imported drugs are rising. They don’t grow like that on our drugs. Therefore, our task is to definitely do this.

We were able to include a number of other industries that for a very long time were in a state of virtual stagnation or idleness. This includes shipbuilding and engine manufacturing. The programs are running. We have now created a whole line of new engines to equip our new aircraft. And they appeared here, we all know about it. This is truly a serious technology, a technology of the 21st century. Therefore, import substitution is underway. Yes, it is not going as fast as we would probably all like, but no one had any illusions. It is impossible to create, on the basis of essentially post-Soviet industry, in two years an industry the same as, for example, in Germany or Japan. In two years, probably not, but in 10 years it is quite possible to do this and become one of the countries that supply complex equipment to other states, that themselves produce machines and mechanisms, produce what in the language of Soviet political economists was called “production of means of production.” for the production of means of production."

E. Osetinskaya: Dmitry Anatolyevich, more realities of this year. Charters to Turkey have been cancelled, air traffic with Egypt has been closed. And this was all already perceived as a distant dacha. The government has started talking about the development of domestic tourism. But will the Krasnodar Territory and Crimea be able to accommodate everyone who wants to relax? Even in terms of water and electricity? Enough? This is just import substitution.

D. Medvedev: Well, yes. There is nothing good about the fact that the resorts of Egypt and Turkey are closed. This is not intrigue on the part of the Government, this is not the evil will of the authorities, this is a matter of the safety of our citizens. Because, choosing between security issues and recreation issues, we are simply obliged (I mean the authorities of the Russian Federation) to make a choice in favor of safety. It's obvious what happened. Terrorist attack. Moreover, judging by the scale of terrorism this year, the repetition of such terrorist attacks on airlines, unfortunately, is very possible - I mean a specific direction, primarily the Middle East. Therefore, we made a decision - unpleasant, by the way, for our friends and partners and unpleasant for our people who vacationed there. But I believe that these are still two incommensurable values: life and the opportunity to relax.

In relation to Turkey. You and I also understand what happened. By the way, these are not sanctions in the literal sense of the word; they are, in fact, a defensive reaction of our state. After all, after our plane was destroyed... How did states usually behave in a similar situation in the 20th century? The war began. Because it is a direct attack on a foreign country. Naturally, in the current life, in the current state and situation, war is the worst thing that can happen. That is why the decision was made not to respond symmetrically to what the Turks did, and they, of course, violated all the norms of international law and committed, in fact, an act of aggression against our country, giving, as they usually say in international legal language, a casus belli, that is, the basis for the outbreak of hostilities. Russian leadership, The president of the country did not agree to this. But we had to show them that they would be responsible for this. That is why such decisions were made in the interests of the safety of our citizens. Are these decisions permanent? I hope not. Although no deadlines are specified in any documents, it is obvious that to a large extent the refusal of this kind of action will depend on the position of the Turkish authorities and on whether they will be able to ensure a security regime on their territory.

Now regarding our resorts. Our resorts, of course, are not as well suited for recreation as Turkish and even Egyptian ones, we understand this. This industry here is so bad; it developed rather poorly during the Soviet period. True, certain settlements and certain tourist places have recently received a good boost, good development - I mean Sochi, Anapa, Gelendzhik. But still, this is not yet the scale of resort service that exists in other countries. It’s okay, we can do it and will do it both on the Black Sea coast of the Caucasus and in Crimea. In Crimea the situation is even worse, because there (we just talked about this) even all the stars on the hotels are fake. Nothing, we will introduce modern tourism standards, we will invest money, we will try to replace them.

And finally, the last thing. It is not necessary to go to Crimea and the Caucasus. We still have big country, there is something to see in other places.

S. Brilev: Dmitry Anatolyevich, one way or another we started talking about the aviation industry. I want to look at it from a slightly different side. In fact, charters to Egypt have been cancelled, charters to Turkey have been cancelled. This, of course, deals a significant blow to the airline industry - the reduction in the number of flights. Added to this is the fact that... Well, okay, the disappearance of the Voronezh airline Polet was less noticed, it was not so large, but when Transaero left the market, this, of course, was serious and visible.

We are all frequent flyers here due to our professional affiliation...

D. Medvedev: Me too.

S. Brilev: We pay for the tickets.

D. Medvedev: This is correct in fact.

S. Brilev: No, it is clear that the company will pay the costs. Ticket prices are rising. What should the airline industry do against the backdrop of this?

D. Medvedev: For the airline industry, this is, of course, a test; there is nothing joyful about the fact that carriers are leaving. In relation to Transaero, the situation, unfortunately, is quite banal: three hundred billion (in rubles) debts. They simply didn't need to be made. This is an error in the forecast, which cost the company very dearly, and different structures must now understand this error so that these errors are not repeated. But at the same time, we will transport everything that was put along the Transaero line using Aeroflot and other companies. In this sense, everything works fine, I would even say, almost like a clock. People don't feel it. As for ticket prices, you are right. Of course, the departure of a carrier is always a blow to competition, and our goal is not to leave only Aeroflot in Russian airspace. Of course not. And it’s a pity for Transaero, because it is an experienced carrier, it has flown a lot and for a long time. I will remind you of the sad fate of some large companies, you yourself know. And in the United States of America...

S. Brilev: Pan Am take one.

D. Medvedev: Certainly! They seemed simply giants, and they are not there. Because, again, they made a mistake in their forecasts or took some other action. Therefore, the task is to preserve the market, and, moreover, to stimulate it. We have decided that VAT on air transport will be reduced from 18 to 10%. This benefit will remain in order to ensure that ticket prices are still quite reasonable. At the same time, it is still necessary to develop competition in this area. Why? Because our country is too big. If our country were small, we could even, perhaps, do without such support measures. But for us, transportation from Vladivostok to Moscow costs a lot of money, simply because the distance is long. We can't make it shorter. And kerosene is still worth the money. Therefore, we need to develop alternative routes, we need to develop economy-class transportation, we need to develop preferential treatment for various routes, which is what we have actually done in recent years. We will definitely continue this work.

M. Fishman: If possible, I will return from heaven to earth. You can't help but be aware that truckers have been protesting for weeks now in connection with the introduction of a new fee (the system is called "Plato") for driving trucks on federal highways. From an outside perspective, the game is not worth the candle, that is, the income from the introduction of this fee is not so significant compared to strikes, rallies, trucks parked, and so on. And there is an idea that a mistake may have been made. The question is, at what stage? At the planning stage - the idea itself was wrong, at the implementation stage - there was a mistake with the explanation, with the implementation itself. Or is our population, in this case drivers, not ready to accept unpopular government measures?

D. Medvedev: Misha, the situation is that not all truckers are on strike. 700 thousand truckers have registered in the payment system. This is the absolute, overwhelming majority of those who carry out intercity transportation. Some did not register for various reasons. When we discussed this measure (by the way, it has been discussed since 2011), it was clear that part of the transportation is carried out entirely by unregistered carriers and it is not known what they are transporting.

I won’t hide, of course, no one likes any new payment. But I say again: the overwhelming majority of carriers, reputable, large ones, which, by the way, carry out 85-90% of all transportation within the country, are already in this system. And this will give us the opportunity to allocate about 40-50 billion rubles to road funds. This is not so little.

Second. Look, we spend about a trillion a year on roads, because the country is huge, and still much more is needed. Who pays this money? In the vast majority of cases, these are drivers who sit behind their private cars, drivers of passenger vehicles. But those who really influence the road, drivers of large trucks and heavy-duty vehicles, pay practically nothing. In all modern states they participate in these expenses - this is absolutely normal, this is the right idea. And I believe that it should be brought to its logical conclusion.

Now regarding the decisions that were made. Indeed, these solutions still needed to be verified from both a technological and economic point of view. From a technological point of view: it is impossible to start the system until it starts working. All sorts of test and other things, until they start collecting money, still don’t work. Therefore, there were probably some mistakes made that needed to be corrected. But they are not fatal, they are all corrected, it all works. That is why 700 thousand registered.

And the second story, it concerns the psychological part. You still need to get used to paying for such transportation, this is absolutely normal, because all this is included in the price of the goods, and ultimately the carriers themselves do not suffer from this. Moreover, the amount of this very tariff was calculated, and taking into account the fact that certain problems arose, we decided to reduce it in the current period, and now it is collected in a smaller amount. It is generally quite negligible for the vast majority of goods transported by such transport.

Finally, the last thing that probably needed to be done was fines. Indeed, the fines may have been somewhat excessive. But now, at the proposal of the Government, the State Duma and the Federation Council have adjusted and lowered them. Therefore, I believe that the system has been fine-tuned, and it will ultimately bring the budget and all of us additional investments in roads. It’s common practice among us to criticize Russian roads; where can we get money for them? It is absolutely obvious that trucks influence all this to a greater extent; they must participate in all this. We must learn to pay for such services. Unpopular measures are not always well received, but ultimately they bring important economic benefits.
K. Pozdnyakov: I’m talking about one more thing common place I want to ask you. Housing and communal services tariffs will increase by 4% in the new year. It doesn't seem to be a problem for the consumer.

D. Medvedev: That's not a lot.

K. Pozdnyakov: Not scary. On the other hand, there is an expert opinion that indicates that the quality of services will not improve in the industry, and investments will not come there. That is, it turns out...

D. Medvedev: So you need to increase it more?

K. Pozdnyakov: Well, I don’t know, so I want to ask you. So it turns out that the consumer will pay more for nothing? And then there are major repairs and so on.

D. Medvedev: The consumer will pay, if we talk about the consumer of housing and communal services, I mean citizens, less than this year, because the tariff will be lower. It is also associated with inflation and is associated with indexation, including indexation of pensions. And since we have planned such indexation, then we, accordingly, will increase the tariff by only 4%. This, by the way, really caused different opinions in the Government, but ultimately we decided to increase the tariff slightly, by only 4%. But this is for the population. If we talk about other participants in these relations, regarding the use of housing and communal services, then they naturally pay more, and the tariff for them is completely different. I believe that this is the optimum that we have now reached. It is impossible to ask more from the population in the current situation.

E. Osetinskaya: Dmitry Anatolyevich, I don’t know if you are familiar with the high-profile investigation by FBK and Novaya Gazeta into the business of members of Yuri Chaika’s family - it would be interesting to know your opinion. But I'm not entirely talking about this. The situation shows, similar investigations show, that the existing system of income declaration does not eliminate public questions about how the income of officials is structured. Since you were the initiator of the declaration system, I would like to ask you: is it perhaps worthwhile to somehow expand this declaration system? Include, for example, adult children in the income declaration system or somehow move towards transparency?

D. Medvedev: I really have something to do with the introduction of the entire system of declarations and reporting of civil servants. I believe that at that time I acted absolutely correctly, and this course was continued in the subsequent period. The range of people who report and the information included in the declaration have been expanded. A conflict of interest structure was introduced, bans were introduced on the ownership of a number of property assets, including foreign accounts, foreign securities, instruments in foreign currency. I believe that this is absolutely normal and this work needs to be continued both in terms of improving legislation and in terms of taking into account what is happening. In this sense, we still have a lot of work ahead, as they say.

By the way, we have ratified a number of international conventions, no matter what anyone says. My opinion (in this case, not even as an official, but as a lawyer) is that our anti-corruption legislation is quite modern. We simply didn’t have it 10 years ago, but now we have completely modern anti-corruption legislation. But this does not mean that our situation with corruption has changed significantly. This is truly one of the most significant evils, one of the most significant problems that exist in our society and among officials, and in general among those who participate in corruption chains, and the state is simply obliged to fight against this.

As for any investigations, they were, are and will be, but the most important thing is that they are based on objective materials.

E. Osetinskaya: Maybe the state itself should somehow come up with the initiative, somehow win it over to its side, or what?

D. Medvedev: Yes, it seems to me, Elizabeth, that we have recently implemented a lot of these initiatives.

E. Osetinskaya: I mean this particular story.

D. Medvedev: About a specific story: all specific stories should be dealt with by those who are responsible for it. These are the people who control the income of civil servants, as well as law enforcement agencies.

You mentioned, for example, as a proposal: let's make it so that officials indicate the income of adult children in their declarations. This can be discussed, but I'm not sure that it corresponds, by and large, modern approaches because situations may be different. There may be situations when people communicate, and there may be other situations. We discussed this, don't think that this has appeared right now. I remember we discussed this about five years ago, where to set the limit: to complete it only on minor children, as we are now reporting, or to extend this to adults too. So, speaking seriously, don’t see everyone as a corrupt official... People may not communicate at all, it’s just how life works, and now, after that, it will be necessary to shake out everything that adult children of government employees do, even if they don’t communicate at all or live in other countries? This is simply a technologically very difficult task, but this issue can also be considered.

As for the general work to improve anti-corruption legislation, it will continue, there is no doubt about it. The Government has repeatedly made decisions about this and the President has made decisions about this.

S. Brilev: Dmitry Anatolyevich, then I wanted to ask you about general work Regarding the business climate, which the President spoke about in the Address, again, it’s easy to combine two topics. Why is the President forced to return to this topic? After all, it has been said more than once, yes, about reducing administrative barriers and reducing supervisory functions. There was some information that now, maybe some supervisory authorities they will unite, then they were not united... Finally, take history with the need, as it turned out, to polish the law on capital amnesty in the second round. In general, if we sum it all up: why is our even the highest government forced to return to the topic of the business climate again and again, year after year, and not change much?
Dmitry Medvedev: Because we have such a business climate that the authorities, and the highest authorities, are forced to return to this. Because it is not changing the way we would like, unfortunately. That's why we come back.

This is actually an extremely difficult task. For various reasons - both due to economic principles, let's be honest, and due to the habits of a huge number of our people. And this is not only a problem for officials and civil servants, because the business climate is shaped by everyone, including business, and until quite recently business behaved completely, fundamentally differently. Now everyone understands that it is very important to improve the business climate. Why is the President talking about this? Why do we talk about this all the time in the Government? Because we are moving forward. Not to see this, probably, would also not be entirely fair, because just recently we were in some 150th places in various ratings, and this is very sad, because Russia, in general, is a developed country, and business climate ours was perceived as worthless. We have now moved forward on a number of procedures. This is somewhat surprising even for me now...

S. Brilev: Do you mean jumping into Doing Business through several dozen positions at once?

D. Medvedev: For example, in terms of company registration, we are among the ten most advanced countries. Look, it's not a bad leap actually. According to the overall rating, we are somewhere in the 50th place. In fact, please note, according to this rating (the ratings are conditional, but they still reflect something), we have bypassed all the BRICS countries - countries whose economies are larger than ours, which are developing in some ways more sustainably than ours economy. But we bypassed them, which means our procedures are somehow better. Therefore, when we talk about the need to improve the business climate, we mean that we simply must be among the most advanced countries. I am confident that we will achieve this. To do this we need to improve regulatory framework, procedures, for this it is necessary to improve electronic verification systems. I recently recalled (my colleagues and I gathered) the beginning of my legal practice. What did lawyers do in the 1990s? Companies were registered. Each company registration was an event. It was necessary to prepare a charter, corporate documents, go through all the authorities, and it was worth it good money, which, naturally, lawyers tried to earn. Now this is an automatic story, it exists, essentially, online, it exists in one window mode. Well, isn't this progress? I think this is very good. Therefore, we will definitely continue this work.

M. Fishman: Dmitry Anatolyevich, if possible, I would like to return to Liza’s question, because it seems important. You brushed aside the investigation against the Prosecutor General and his family and high-ranking employees of the Prosecutor General's Office, saying that the investigation should be objective. But I would like to understand how we can understand that the investigation is objective. For this to happen, it seems there must be some kind of reaction. We see so far that the government in this sense, in the broad sense, is silent, and at the same time we are talking about the reputation of the entire government. This is not even corruption, we are talking about... In particular, charges have been brought against high-ranking employees of the Prosecutor General's Office for direct connections with crime. And the authorities must react, there must be some kind of, perhaps, open public investigation, temporary removal of the prosecutor general from duties due to a conflict of interest. Well, how else will we understand whether this is true or not?

D. Medvedev: Mikhail, you just now used such a construction, probably unconsciously, but in vain: you said that a specific person or official charged. But if we are in such a coordinate system, we will go very far. This will then be the 1930s at best. In our country, only the law enforcement system can bring charges, only in established by law ok. And with regard to all kinds of publications, you yourself know how they arise and in what way, and this is not always the result of an objective investigation and the result of the objective activity of some individuals. This is very often custom-made. I will not now evaluate specific publications, simply so as not to advertise for them, and this is precisely the goal of this publication. Moreover, it is always part of the political struggle. But, naturally, if there is information, law enforcement agencies and control authorities are obliged to analyze it and are obliged to make decisions, but only within the framework of existing procedures, based not on emotional considerations - “Wow, who did they write about! Well, let’s see everyone now.” we’ll roll it into asphalt,” but based on the specific materials of the case, based on the legal assessment of what is contained there. Only in this case will we be able to create a rule-of-law state, and not a state that, unfortunately, existed in our country for almost 80 years, when the presumption of innocence could be thrown into the trash. I would ask that you keep this in mind when you make such conclusions.

M. Fishman: I completely agree. There is a public outcry, and there is zero reaction from the authorities...

D. Medvedev: Public outcry is normal. The public response should be followed by a legally verified reaction from the authorities - not an emotional, but a legally verified reaction from the authorities, not an emotional, but a legally verified reaction. That's all

I. Zeinalova: Will there be a reaction?

D. Medvedev: If no one is talking about anything now, this does not mean that there is no reaction. The reaction should not be immediate. In any episode, in any case, the authorities, I mean law enforcement agencies, are obliged to simply analyze the totality of the facts. I will not evaluate anything precisely because I consider it unacceptable from the level of the Chairman of the Government or from any other high level to evaluate this or that law enforcement circumstances, this or that circumstance of this or that case, and by the way, I have always done this in any position. But assessments have always been given and will be given, this is understandable.

K. Pozdnyakov: I have a question, probably a worldview one.

D. Medvedev: No longer about money?

K. Pozdnyakov: Now it will become clear in the process of presentation. Sanctions are being imposed against us. We say: “Well, great, this will help us.”

D. Medvedev: We are becoming stronger.

K. Pozdnyakov: Yes. Down with the bourgeois, let's buy domestic. If we are told that traveling to the Turkish or Egyptian shores is some kind of stereotype imposed on us, then, in general, that’s also normal, we’ll relax at home. Our native country is wide. Is this our real revaluation of values ​​or some kind of subconscious desire for self-isolation?

D. Medvedev: Yes, this is definitely a serious question. Firstly, you and I have been buying bourgeois stuff for quite some time now, because we market economy, based on the use of private capital. We buy almost nothing socialist, unless we take the products that are supplied to us from North Korea.

K. Pozdnyakov: Bourgeois, I meant overseas.

D. Medvedev: Overseas is another matter. As for the desire for self-isolation, our desire to somehow limit ourselves, I think that we have nothing like that. We are all modern people, no matter where we work. Let's imagine that Soviet Union would have survived to the present time. Can you imagine for a moment that he would be outside the trends that exist in the world, outside the trends of globalization, outside the open information agenda? Impossible.

The Soviet Union, even in former times, in the sense of Soviet times, was not a completely closed society, let alone today’s life. Therefore, we do not have any self-isolation, it does not threaten us, and we do not revel in the decisions that we make. This is definitely not an internal need Russian man- close yourself on all sides, preserve the patriarchal way of life, say: don’t meddle with us with your charter in our monastery, we will sort this out ourselves, and we don’t need anything Western, anything foreign. Since the time of Pyotr Alekseevich, the window that was cut into Europe has not been closed. But this does not mean that we should drag all kinds of garbage out of there. We must, naturally, proceed from our own interests, national interests, based on our own pragmatic position. But isolation and refusal to communicate with foreign countries certainly do not threaten us, and no one wants this.

E. Osetinskaya: Dmitry Anatolyevich, in continuation, so to speak, of this topic, I wanted to ask you.

D. Medvedev: Philosophical?

E. Osetinskaya: Not really. We talked a lot about a turn to the East, but this turn to the East, it seems to me, based on the information that is available, did not materialize in anything concrete. That is, many framework agreements have been signed with China, but what they are filled with is not completely clear.

D. Medvedev: I can answer for a long time, but we already have little time. How is it not filled? If about China, for example, just about China. Look, “Power of Siberia” is an agreement worth tens of billions of dollars for the supply of our gas. The oil routes through which we are already supplying oil to China are supplies worth tens of billions of dollars that are already being paid to us, these are already implemented projects, these are already investments. Tianwan NPP - we have already built one stage for it, now we are building another. These are only the largest objects. Everything is fine there. I will go there next week to discuss investments with my Chinese colleagues.

S. Brilev: Before announcing the next steps in the activities of the Prime Minister, I will say that time is really coming to an end.

I. Zeinalova: Coming full circle, I would like to return to the beginning of the conversation. The reality is that the year seemed so difficult, from time to time there was the impression that we were in some kind of environment, and now it was hard. I really want light at the end of the tunnel. Say something encouraging for next year, because everything seems to be clear with this one, if you have no other comments.

D. Medvedev: Irada, can I tell you briefly? Everything will be fine! I cordially congratulate you and all our TV viewers on the upcoming New Year. I wish everyone a good mood, of course, peaceful skies, I wish everyone a good New Year. Our New Year holidays are long, so we definitely need to spend them in an interesting way.

As for the difficulties... Some of the difficulties will remain, but there is no doubt that we will overcome them. I wish you good broadcasts - everyone. And good journalistic publications.

I. Zeinalova: Have a good budget.

D. Medvedev: And, of course, it is important for us that money flows into the treasury, then it will be easier to solve problems, but rest assured, we will do everything.

And the past year, you know, there really was a lot in it - both sad and hopeful. There were very positive moments, let’s remember the 70th anniversary of the Victory. This is, after all, our common holiday, we celebrated it in a truly, human way.
There were, of course, very difficult events, needless to say. Of course, terrorism has unfortunately raised its head again around the world. We will fight this. But overall, I think we have passed this year with dignity. The coming year will bring us new events. Thank you very much for regularly holding such events with me.

S. Brilev: Dmitry Anatolyevich, thank you very much.

"Conversation with Dmitry Medvedev." ABOUT pension reform and not only

Olga Skopina © IA Krasnaya Vesna

Traditional interview with Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev on the results of the outgoing year to five Russian TV channels. The Prime Minister of the Russian Federation sums up the results of the year and answers questions from journalists.

Let us recall that 2018 was very eventful with various unpopular decisions on the part of the Russian government, which led to a significant deterioration in the socio-economic situation in the country.

06.12.2018:

The “conversation with Dmitry Medvedev” ended with the Prime Minister’s New Year’s plans. He will celebrate the New Year like everyone else - with the chimes and an address from the President of Russia. And then he plans, if possible, to go to Sochi and go skiing.

Talking about dangers and benefits digital economy, Medvedev reported a record low unemployment rate. According to him, it amounted to 4.7%.

For 10 months of 2018 they amounted to 1.7%. He emphasized that growth continues. And the government has achieved stable inflation - which allows people to plan their income and expenses.

For the first time in many years. Which suggests that the Russian government managed its revenues correctly, Medvedev said.

As a rule, Medvedev assesses the events of the past year. The topics are usually very different: from sanctions to domestic policy. Typically the conversation lasts about 1.5 hours.

Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev has already arrived at the Channel One studio. This will be the eleventh conversation in this format. The head of government will be interviewed by Pyotr Tolstoy (Channel One), Sergei Brilev (Russia-1), Irada Zeynalova (NTV) and Ilya Doronov (RBC), as well as Irita Minina, author of the “Personally Familiar” program on the Tomsk Vremya TV channel. .

Dmitry Medvedev

Let us recall that in his interview last year, Dmitry Medvedev said that in 2016, Russian agricultural producers grew a record harvest of 118 million tons. This, according to him, was the highest harvest in the entire history of modern Russia. The Russian Federation has also made great progress in terms of industrial development. According to Medvedev, over the past two years (at the time of the interview), about 250 billion rubles have been invested in import substitution in industry, of which 120 billion through the industry fund.

Medvedev noted the growth of a number of industries, including the chemical, woodworking and pulp and paper industries. In 2016, according to the prime minister, they grew significantly - by 10-15%.

In addition, the head of government then noted that the Russian Federation’s needs for transport engineering are met through domestic production - approximately 98%.

“That is, we do not buy anything abroad “, the prime minister said then. — If we move in this direction, we will be able to increase the growth rate of our economy to four percent per year or similar, comparable values, that is, higher than the rate of development of the world economy.”

The economy in 2017, according to Medvedev, was supposed to begin the transition to growth.

Light. Medvedev

The interview has begun.

The Prime Minister is asked questions by the presenter of Channel One Valery Fadeev, presenter at VGTRK Sergey Brilev, NTV presenter Irada Zeynalova, presenter of Dozhd Mikhail Fishman and presenter of RBC Igor Poletaev.

Sergei Brilev asked the first question - about the results of the outgoing year.

“In my opinion, today we can testify that the economy has entered a stage of growth and, in general, the changes that have taken place are quite favorable” , said Medvedev.

Medvedev recalled Putin’s words that the economy had emerged from recession. Last year there was “negative growth” of -0.2%.

“This year the situation is different. There are also a lot of forecasts, but analysts all agree that by the end of this year we will get about 2% of GDP growth.” ,” he stated.

“This is not a huge figure, but it is in line with the global average in developed countries,” he added.

This year there will be a record low inflation - less than 3%, the prime minister noted.

“A huge achievement for the entire post-Soviet era. Inflation has never dropped so low. This has direct implications for both the economy and ordinary citizens.” ,” Medvedev stated.

This year we can state that real wages are growing.

“By the end of the year it will grow by approximately 3%” ,” Medvedev pointed out.

Nominal growth, in turn, is 7%.

“Not the most outstanding result, but an important change in trend” “, stated the Prime Minister.

Medvedev noted that investments in fixed capital at the end of the year will grow by more than 4% - this has not happened in recent years either.

“Not to mention the balanced budget, foreign exchange reserves, which are also growing this year” ,” Medvedev pointed out.

It is extremely important that the ruble exchange rate is stable and predictable, the prime minister also added.

Medvedev emphasized that despite the gloomy forecasts and political pressure, the government is fully fulfilling its social obligations.

“We did everything we planned. This is a good result" ,” Medvedev pointed out.

Iraida Zeynalova asked for clarification. She asked where to store funds today.

Medvedev: It depends on what goals the citizen is pursuing and whether he is ready for risks. The second question is what it is stored in and how it is paid for - since the majority of Russians receive, store and spend in rubles, then it is worth storing in rubles.

Medvedvev replied that not a single indicator can be an end in itself.

“The end in itself is the well-being of citizens. The exchange rate is stable. The exchange rate is influenced by a number of parameters, the global financial system, and the internal state of the economy. It is dictated by hydrocarbon prices. Plus other factors. Including external shocks such as sanctions. All these parameters, although they influence the ruble exchange rate, are not so volatile as they were several years ago. Look what happened to oil prices. Oil fluctuated up to 50%, from 43 dollars to 65. The spread is huge. Previously, when we observed such volatility, the ruble followed oil in the same way. He got loose. During the same time, the exchange rate in borders was 56-64 rubles per dollar. And the dollar exchange rate also moved. The economy has entered a different phase.”

Medvedev is asked about the quality of economic growth - the Central Bank’s adjustment for the year, growth according to the bank’s forecasts amounted to 1.8%. Why is there such weak growth? Are structural reforms needed? Is there a ceiling for growth?

“2% is not stagnation. Some countries would envy this 2%. The question is what is the basis for this growth. She’s not as significant as we would like.” , said Medvedev.

According to Medvedev, Russia has not exhausted its opportunities for growth. However, the country is under the influence economic shocks- both external and internal.

Externally, there are prices for hydrocarbons, which are still not as high as we would like, as well as Western sanctions.

“But no less important, and perhaps more significant, is the structure of our economy, which is still focused on hydrocarbon growth. It is changing, more than half of our income, about 60%, comes not from oil and gas trade. But it is desirable that there be 80-85% of them (from other sources).” , said Medvedev.

In some cases, both the exit of the state and the entry of the state into certain segments of the economy are needed, Medvedev emphasized. Structural reforms are needed so that “we don’t freeze at 2%,” the prime minister added.

Premier. Medvedev

Fadeev continued the topic of sanctions. There are complex industries (machine tool industry and others). In connection with the sanctions, what measures are taken to develop these industries?

Medvedev:

“These industries are complex and important, and this is where non-resource growth lies. The measures are clear. We started implementing it. These are investments in machine tools and so on. We just recently purchased 87% of machine tools for export. Now this figure will be around 70. That’s also a lot. Purely Russian players appeared. Despite the fact that we still have to obtain technology and create business with foreign partners.”

If we talk about IT. This is not to say that we were not involved in this industry. Zelenograd was created as a center for the development of microelectronics. The main thing is that it corresponds to the level dictated by the modern situation. These are subtle sensitive things. Some of these technologies are subject to sanctions. We must develop and use it in everyday life. Quite recently we did not have our own internal payment system. The world is very vulnerable. There are a lot of gavriks who do harm when making decisions and influencing the network. We have created our own payment system. We must have our own chips and cards. That was done. The task is to ensure that all this is at a high level.

The idea of ​​product traceability and electronic tags. It is important to know how the goods got to us and what stages they went through. To put a barrier to counterfeit and gray imports. And non-payment of taxes. This is the future of the economy. The digital economy program has just been adopted.

The Prime Minister is asked about the working poor - there are about 12 million of them at present. Will we be able to overcome poverty by increasing GDP growth in the coming years?

“Poverty is, of course, one of the most glaring problems of our modern economy. Naturally, poverty itself is the flip side of economic underdevelopment. Because there cannot be a situation where the economy is in a weak state and there are no poor people at all.” , said Medvedev.

“Over the past few years, the number of such people has increased. It is less significant than what we started with at the beginning of this century, 10-15 years ago. Then there were about 30 million such people.” ,” Medvedev pointed out.

According to the prime minister, this issue requires “systematic, specific work.” The problem with the current Russian social system is that it “smears everything with a thin layer.” Therefore, the idea of ​​targeting is extremely important.

“Pensioners, people with disabilities and large families. It is in these categories that decisions are made.” ,” Medvedev listed the social groups to which targeted assistance should be sent.

Supporting families is a key task.

“This is our future, and it is very bad when people making decisions about family planning are faced with financial problems. This is the main limiter" ,” Medvedev stated.

Medvedev recalled that the maternity capital program turned out to be working, and the president proposed extending it until 2021. Other important steps were announced.

“These are benefits for those families who have decided to have their first child. We are convinced that now is the time to encourage the birth of first children, not second children. For this purpose, benefits are being introduced, this is the targeting that I spoke about.” , said the Prime Minister.

“Another idea is to subsidize mortgage loans above the 6% level - and according to all world calculations, 6% is the mortgage that most families can easily afford - so the difference between 6% and the current mortgage rate will be compensated for federal funds account. This will apply to those who have a second and third child - for 3 years and five years. This will significantly motivate people and stimulate the mortgage program.” ,” Medvedev pointed out.

Iraida Zeynalova has a question about pensions. I would not like to be left without help in my old age; now there are statements that the Pension Fund is empty and there is nothing to pay with.

“Is there anything to pay for pensions?” she asks.

Medvedev:

It is clear that negative information always leaves a wound in the soul. A sediment remains. Seems to have been refuted. I want to say officially - everything is in order, there is money to pay pensions, there will be no problems.

Another thing is that you need to think about how to properly optimize your cash savings and how to manage them.

These are all tasks for the coming years. But they have nothing to do with payments. Moreover, pensions affect 43 million people. This is a third of our country's population. This is an extremely sensitive topic on which there can be no ambiguity. We proceed from the need to index pensions in January. This indexation will be higher than inflation.

Indexation is already planned - 3.7%.

We have returned to normal, when indexation is at or above inflation.

Question from Sergei Brilev (VGTRK) about taxes: there is a new round of conversations about the tax burden, will personal income tax remain flat?

“We promised that during the current period - the president said, the government - the basis of the tax system will not change. And we did it! No matter what they say and no matter how they reproach us for quasi-tax payments. Tax rates all have been preserved. Name a country where it would be the same as ours - so that they don’t change for 5-7 years?” , Medvedev replied.

“There are no eternal taxes. The flat personal income tax scale turned out to be very successful for our country; we pulled a huge amount of income out of the shadows. Even the very rich are not afraid to pay. We collect up to 3 trillion in personal income tax per year - this is a huge amount! And when deciding which direction we are going, we must think about who will pay how much.” ,” Medvedev pointed out.

The Prime Minister called for taking into account the possibility of returning to “gray payments”.

“I believe that the simple to calculate, understandable tax scale (personal income tax) has justified itself. And then we’ll see” ,” Medvedev concluded, speaking about the possibility of reforming the taxation system in the future.

Question from Poletaev: What do you think about the financial crisis?

Medvedev replied:

“I believe that today our financial system is in a stable and balanced normal state. This system was balanced due to successful decisions made by the Central Bank. The government, in its part, accepted and supported these decisions. The Central Bank continues to work to restore order in the financial world.”

“Some of our banks did not have the capital to develop. The Central Bank decided to revoke licenses for such banks. Lawsuits, disputes. But this is clearing the financial field. When there are many such banks, they can ruin the entire system. It seems to me that the Central Bank is coping.”

According to him, indicators and liquidity issues are important for banks.

“The Central Bank is monitoring and will continue to monitor all these positions. There is no reason to believe that these measures will have the opposite effect. Our financial system has strengthened. This is reflected in the quotes of our currency.” “, the prime minister added.

Asks Valery Fadeev (Channel One): Defrauded shareholders - have there become fewer of them and what is being done to solve the problem?

“Certain decisions have been made and, in my opinion, long-awaited” , said Medvedev.

The question is divided into two parts: to prevent future manipulation of shareholders’ money. For this purpose, a law was adopted, a fund for the protection of participants in shared construction - by placing accumulated funds in the completion of construction or paying compensation.

“They should be included in the contracts themselves... there is only 1.2% - this will not affect the cost of services and contract work in any way. This did not affect prices or the construction market in any way.” ,” the prime minister pointed out.

The second part of the problem is to help those who are already in a problematic situation.

“This is a piece of work. Region differs greatly from region to region—in some places there are many, in others there are few. Somewhere the queue is measured in tens of thousands, all this must be untangled and done with the utmost care and tact towards those who find themselves in such a situation.” ,” explained the Prime Minister.

“In the future, we need to completely abandon shared construction agreements. These are all rudiments of a previous era, an underdeveloped housing market. In no other countries do such shared construction agreements exist. Mortgage - yes. And here, due to the fact that the financial system worked “so-so”, construction technologies were not up to par - we now have this model. In the future, we need to gradually move away from shared construction to a normal civilized mortgage.” ,” Medvedev pointed out.

Iraida Zeynalova: Health care reform - how does it include the very problem of accessibility of medical services and quality of services in the social sphere, otherwise they will get bogged down in paperwork.

Medvedev emphasized that reporting in general is necessary, it cannot be abandoned, otherwise we will go to the other extreme, when it is impossible to track how a person was taught and treated. But reporting, he says, must be reasonable:

“The pile of reports has ballooned. Everyone points to this. Both doctors and teachers. What to do? Introduce modern forms of control and reporting - electronic forms. There is nothing supernatural here.”

The second side, Medvedev emphasized, is to ensure better accessibility:

“I think doctors already know how to use computers. 10 years ago, the transition of our schools to Internetization began. Then I went into schools and saw teachers looking longingly at computers. Now everyone has learned. It is important that accessibility is ensured. It is not necessary to transport the patient from the area for consultation. Sometimes it's hundreds of kilometers. The person may feel unwell. But if there is communication over the network, then you can show everything on the Internet and get qualified advice in a regional center or even in Moscow.”

Now we are discussing how to use additional money to create an electronic communications system, he added.

Question about the “demonstrative action of intimidation” against theaters, Kirill Serebryanikov and others: how does the prime minister look at this situation.

“Our representatives of creative professions are right that the legislation in relation to theaters, film production and a number of other creative professions is extremely imperfect. Change is not as fast as we would like. Everything revolves around government procurement and government services. This is the so-called 44th law. It dictates understandable competitive requirements, but as soon as we move into the creative world, this criterion fails.” , said Medvedev.

“Directors approached me and said that everything is included in the control and administration system through the Treasury. But how can we pay a carpenter who creates decorations in a distant Siberian town? We need cash. He doesn’t have an account, he can’t pay with a card.” ,” Medvedev gave an example.

“We are making progress so that the system in relation to theaters and other creative activities becomes more loyal. Here you need to create a working model" “, the Prime Minister emphasized.

In addition, all these actions must be adequately reflected in the accounting department, he added:

“The task of those involved in this is to follow the existing rules to the maximum. It’s difficult, but you need to pay attention to it.”

“Therefore, the movement must be counter-movement - to create a clear, workable framework of creative activity for creative professions. On the other hand, representatives of creative professions and organizations themselves must monitor as much as possible what is happening in their country.”

Commenting on recent high-profile cases with theater figures, Medvedev emphasized that “all processes have different sides” and noted that such issues must be approached with the utmost sensitivity.

“There are also plaintiffs who believe that the actions of certain persons, including creative ones, contain elements of offenses. It's within their right. The state can do this, and other participants can do this,” he added.

Medvedev replied that this is the most important topic, it concerns all people in our country. Everyone takes medications one way or another.

“In this area, state control must be constant. This is done by the federal antimonopoly service. We currently do not fully regulate drug prices, but we monitor the balance of these prices. How to achieve balance?

“There is huge money circulating there. I called the minister in the morning and asked what we were counting on regarding the financing of medicines.” ,” Medvedev emphasized.

“About half a trillion annually. Through the budget and the compulsory medical insurance system. We need to make sure that the money goes to business. To purchase important medications. This list of vital and essential drugs consists of almost 700 items. The wider this list, the higher the availability of drugs. It is important to monitor the assortment in pharmacies. So that it doesn’t happen that there is an expensive drug, but there is no cheap one. We need to keep an eye on this."

“It is very important that the drugs themselves are of high quality and reasonably cheap, and are sold at prices acceptable to people. How to achieve this?

A number of manufacturers did not act very nicely. We need to bring order to the pharmaceutical market. 70% of drugs are purchased from abroad and only 30% within the country. If you look at the list of essential drugs, 85% are already purchased within the country. It's objectively cheaper. It is not affected by foreign currency fluctuations. This is import substitution to which we must pay the closest attention. So that all participants in this market behave responsibly. We have made decisions to label medications differently.

Questions immediately arose that this would lead to higher prices. But we need high-quality drugs and a normal pharmaceutical industry. We need to put things in order there so that there are drugs no worse than imported ones.”

Igor Poletaev (RBC) asks about record grain harvests. For farmers, the problem is falling prices on the world market. Does the government plan to regulate the market more strictly?

“We have achieved outstanding results - here I would like to praise all the farmers and praise the measures that we took” , said Medvedev.

140 million tons of grain is a result that our country has never known in any century and under any system, he emphasized.

“We have become the largest net exporter of wheat and grains. This is capital. This is currency. If we reach a level of about 50 million tons - and the harvest allows us to do this, with all standards and reserves provided - this will solve many problems." , said Medvedev.

Secondly, we need to invest in deep grain processing, he emphasized.

“Third, it is very important that our logistics capabilities are aligned with our grain production capabilities. These are ports and roads. Finally, there is the tariff component. Taking into account the outstanding harvest results this year, we decided to support farmers with lower tariffs for rail transportation." , said Medvedev.

“Are there enough carriages?” ,” Zeynalova clarified.

"Enough is enough" “, the prime minister assured with a smile.

Fishman asked about the change of governors:

“Unprecedented scale. Many Varangians. What do you think about this? Don’t these reshuffles mean that the new Gubarmi will be assigned the status of a local representative of the center?”

Medvedev:

“If we talk about the general trend, it seems correct to me. We have actively begun processes related to the rejuvenation of the governor's corps. Now there was a large group of relatively young people who received new appointments, but they are still acting.

When people vote, they always look to see whether they are theirs or not. I have been to many regions and seen how appointees work. I was pleasantly surprised how quickly they immersed themselves in the local material. They fit in very well. Everything will depend on their teams and how they work.

The governor is not the president of the subject of the federation. The head of a subject is, as a rule, the head of the executive branch, de facto and de jure, being participants in a large vertical of power, headed by the government.

But of course the most important thing is the support of people. Now another group that has received appointments must prove its efficiency.

Due to certain circumstances, I lead the largest party. I met with each of the candidates. They all said that they wanted to be useful to their country. Let's see what they can do."

Sergei Brilev (VGTRK) asks about the governors: rejuvenation has taken place, there is renewal. But the systemic problem remains the same - it seems that we have a federation, but management is largely unitary, which is especially evident in inter-budgetary relations. If debts are forgiven to the regions, then is it also necessary to give more independence to the constituent entities of the Russian Federation?

“This is a double-edged sword and you need to keep a balance. All regions are very different. … All regions have their own projects, and the vast majority of them were created in order to develop economies and help people. In a number of cases, they were not very well calculated... They want to show how their investments are going well, but they don’t really monitor the budgetary sector.” , said Medvedev.

According to him, the regions will still have to help - despite the federal nature of the state, full responsibility rests with the center.

Regions behave differently, the prime minister stated, commenting on Zeynalova’s remark that help from the center allows many governors to “behave infantilely.” According to Medvedev, we need to look at each specific situation what kind of loans do certain subjects of the Russian Federation have?

“Transfer some of the commercial loans to budget ones - we transferred approximately 50% of them to budget ones. We need to think about restructuring the debt - they restructured it for 700 billion.” ,” Medvedev emphasized.

According to him, the subsidy system amounted to about 600 billion rubles.

“All these measures help (support) the situation. But governors must behave responsibly." ,” Medvedev emphasized. On expanding powers: “We cannot have an absolutely symmetrical federation. If our territories, lands, states were exactly the same... it would be very easy. But they are very different! Legally, the powers are the same. But they need to be implemented in very different ways.” , said Medvedev.

Fadeev: There is a technological revolution in the world. There are tensions. We do not have all the key studies. Do we have a chance to return to the top?

Medvedev:

“There are chances, but we can’t delay. We need to jump on the departing train. This train has gained momentum without us. For a long time we were in a situation where we had to survive. Only now have they begun to create the basis for their technological development. There are tools that have already been tested. There are people. We have a lot of talented people. There is no ability to quickly transform new products into working projects.

In this sense, we cannot boast of a magnificent past. But this can be learned. There are countries that cannot invent things on their own. We need to learn how to commercialize. Businesses must invest in modern technologies. I had to force large companies there with a stick. This is truly a task of exceptional importance.”

Irada Zeynalova (NTV) asks about “cyber innovations”: They blame our “hackers” for breaking everything. There is such a thing as cyberwar - now people who are “stuck” in the computer world are talking about ensuring cyber sovereignty. How does this relate to talk of building a “digital economy”?

“This is a global task. And it’s better not cyber war, but cyber cooperation.” , said Medvedev.

“If we talk about international legislation, about conventions in the field of cybersecurity, we are at the zero level, humanity has not advanced anywhere since the 1970s.”

“We must be self-sufficient, but not closed,” the prime minister said. There should be enough technology for development, but closedness will lead to isolation from advanced developments.

“Hackers, Kremlin agents... This is already a separate, mature market. Everyone climbs on everyone. Everyone is watching each other. Blaming our country alone is ridiculous, everyone understands this perfectly well. But Russia’s accusations have turned into a tool for internal disputes in other countries.” , said Medvedev.

According to him, terrorists are actively using modern technologies, and instead of “crying about hackers,” states need to consolidate conditions in the fight against this threat.

“Let’s face it, absolute protection that will last for decades or even years does not exist. For every cyber defense measure there is one trick or another. This is a competition that will go on constantly. We just have to be ready for it." , said Medvedev.