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In the city of Kirzhach, Vladimir Region, a ventilation and air conditioning equipment manufacturing plant has been built by Shaft Technology, a subsidiary of the Rusklimat production and marketing holding company. In the priority socioeconomic development area of Volodarsk, Nizhny Novgorod Region, First Weaving Factory has created a full-cycle weaving-and-finishing production facility. In the Samara Region, AvtoVAZ is about to launch mass production of business-class Lada Aura cars. In the Krymsky District, Krasnodar Territory, the Udarnaya Thermal Power Plant with a capacity of 560 megawatts will become fully operational soon. In Ust-Ilimsk, Irkutsk Region, a pulp and paper mill is gearing up to reach its design capacity.

During the meeting, Minister of Industry and Trade Anton Alikhanov reported on the situation in the manufacturing sector and measures to promote technological advancement in certain economic sectors.

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President of Russia Vladimir Putin: Good evening, colleagues,

Launching modern and efficient industrial enterprises in the Far East, Siberia, and the Urals, as well as in southern, northwestern, and central Russia, has become an established tradition. I am pleased to be able to carry it on today.

Several important investment projects have been successfully implemented in a number of regions, and new production facilities have been created in energy generation, car manufacturing, textiles and pulp-and-paper products, as well as ventilation and air conditioning systems. Some are already operational and will soon reach full capacity.

Notably, hundreds of new production sites, factory floors, plants, and factories have become operational in recent years. Among them are industrial giants, such as the Udokan Mining and Metallurgical Plant in the Trans-Baikal Territory, the Taishet Aluminium Smelter in the Irkutsk Region, and ZapSibNeftekhim in the Tyumen Region, to name a few.

Overall, our industrial production is growing, and manufacturing industries are showing an upward trend. They are developing ahead of schedule. This is largely a result of the systemic, joint work of businesses and the government to update and upgrade industrial capacities. We have an entire range of measures in effect to support industrial projects. Companies involved in them can choose tools that suit them best. In particular, these are special investment contracts, agreements on the protection and promotion of capital investments, a cluster investment platform, and industrial mortgages, as well as the Industrial Development Fund programmes.

We will continue to improve these mechanisms and create conditions for widespread launching of new production facilities and upgrading the existing ones. This is the key to creating skilled and highly paid jobs, increasing Russian families’ income and raising the prestige of blue-collar and engineering professions. This is an opportunity for millions, including young people, to fulfil their potential and find their personal vocation.

Of course, we will encourage the introduction of cutting-edge domestic technologies and equipment. The country’s scientific, industrial, and technological sovereignty directly depend on that, as does our companies’ increased competitiveness, including on the global market.

The Government is now finalising new national projects aimed at ensuring the country’s technological independence in healthcare, agriculture, transport, space and energy sectors, as well as in a number of other important areas. We will shortly discuss their main parameters at a meeting of the Council for Strategic Development and National Projects.

Let me stress once again: our key task is to scale up the production of high-quality high-tech products created through our own scientific and engineering solutions, and to strengthen our own industrial base. These projects will receive our priority support, including through the formation and expansion of demand for domestic goods that we can and should produce ourselves, in Russia, to meet the needs of both domestic and global markets.

In conclusion, I would like to thank all the specialists that took part in developing and launching new facilities for their hard work, responsibility, and initiative.

And, of course, I sincerely wish great success to their personnel.

Thank you.

Let us begin.

Mr Alikhanov, go ahead.

Minister of Industry and Trade Anton Alikhanov: Mr President,

In the first eight months of this year, the output of manufacturing industries grew by 8.1 percent, with all of them in the black. The leaders include the computer, electronic equipment and finished metal products manufacturing industries, where output added more than 30 percent, as well as various segments of transport engineering that added over 20 percent. The highest rates were observed in the car industry, with growth for all types of cars exceeding 37 percent, which is indicative of the sector’s rapid recovery.

Overall, the government has allocated about 31.5 billion rubles since the beginning of the year to encourage the demand in the automotive industry. As a result, the production of light commercial vehicles increased by 27 percent, and the production of cars by almost by 44 percent.

Today’s launch of production of the Aura cars, designed with the state support, will be a milestone for this sector. We are not going to stop here but will expand the range of the most popular classes of cars to be built based on a single modular platform. These are the solutions that we are including in the new national project on transport mobility.

Ambitious tasks on new energy technologies have also been included in the technological leadership national project. In particular, we seek to increase the share of Russian-made equipment for the fuel and energy sector from 72 to 90 percent as regards essential facilities.

The first Russian high-power turbine, GTD-110, installed at the Udarnaya TPP at your instructions, is a particular achievement that we have worked towards for several years. The government invested largely in its creation, which has allowed us to reach a new power range to reduce our dependence on Western suppliers of such turbines.

We are expanding the production of central air conditioning systems, modular and compact ventilation units, as well as fire-fighting equipment for industrial enterprises and healthcare facilities. We begin to produce all of this at a new specialised major enterprise of the Rusklimat holding in the Vladimir Region, with the share of locally manufactured equipment exceeding 90 percent. This complex stands out from other manufacturers in this segment due to the high level of robotisation, while its production volumes will significantly increase the domestic share in various niches of climate control equipment.

An equally important project for our timber industry, which is ramping up production, is a new pulp and paperboard mill in Ust-Ilimsk. Upon reaching its estimated capacity of 600,000 tonnes of solid containerboard, the enterprise will become the world's third largest producer of such products. This will allow us not only to cover all domestic market needs, but also to press Western suppliers thus becoming a leader, as we hope, in the market of the People's Republic of China.

The project to create the country's largest drapery fabrics production enterprise in the Nizhny Novgorod Region received comprehensive assistance from the Industrial Development Fund. The entire complex of Pervaya Tkatskaya Fabrika (First Weaving Factory) was built from scratch and within a short timeframe. The factory has already started manufacturing high-demand products such as furnishing and upholstery fabrics, home textiles, car and aircraft interior upholstery fabrics, and workwear fabrics. It is encouraging that our partners from Belarus have already become the main suppliers of raw materials for our enterprise. The company already has a number of customers from outside Russia as well. Work on export contracts is underway. It should be noted that the capacity of this enterprise allows us to almost triple the output of such products in our country.

Mr President, we are providing all possible assistance to these and many other projects that are being currently implemented in the industry through the mechanisms you have mentioned, and we are working closely with the leadership of the regions who, of course, are interested in the development of new local production facilities and are also providing their own assistance. Representatives of the factories will tell us more about the projects.

Thank you for your attention.

Vladimir Putin: Good, thank you very much.

(During the videoconference, reports on new enterprises were delivered by Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Rusklimat Trade Industrial Complex Mikhail Timoshenko, Director of the Pervaya Tkatskaya Fabrika (First Weaving Factory) Nadezhda Averina, AvtoVAZ President Maxim Sokolov, Technopromexport Director General Alexander Pronin, and Ilim Group CEO Alexei Lomko. Comments were provided by Vladimir Region Governor Alexander Avdeyev, Nizhny Novgorod Region Governor Gleb Nikitin, Samara Region Governor Vyacheslav Fedorishchev, Krasnodar Territory Governor Veniamin Kondratyev, and Irkutsk Region Governor Igor Kobzev.)

Vladimir Putin: The colleagues who spoke today, at least many of them, reported on the creation of new high-quality and well-paid jobs at their enterprises. At the same time, we also know that there is a shortage of personnel and the unemployment rate is at a record low now. It is almost down to zero, which is a factor hindering our economic growth.

What can we do in this situation? The best solution would be to enhance our technological independence and labour efficiency. What you are doing now – I mean the colleagues who are opening new production facilities – is movement in the right direction.

I believe it has already been mentioned today that over the first eight months of this year industrial production increased by 4.5 percent and manufacturing by 8.1 percent compared to the same period last year. It is a good result, and we must certainly do our utmost to keep this pace.

Thank you for everything you have done. I wish you success and strongly hope that all of you will do more and strive higher.

All the best and good luck.