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Dmitry Medvedev said that developing a centre of this kind will make the Russian economy more open and predictable and improve the country’s investment climate.

The President also announced at the meeting that he has signed an executive order attaching the Federal Service for Insurance Supervision to the Federal Financial Markets Service.

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President of Russia Dmitry Medvedev: Colleagues, we met last December, but some time has passed since then, and I would like to hear now about what has been done over this period, and what concrete steps have been taken in developing the Moscow financial centre.

When the centre starts functioning we will realise how much it can help to expand our economic possibilities and how useful it will be for developing our financial markets, achieving our modernisation goals, pursuing our technological development, and ultimately, what a big contribution it can make to improving the lives of a majority of our people.

”Developing this financial centre remains a top priority for our country and depends directly on our efforts to resolve two issues.“

The big financial players from the G20 countries are all trying to increase their influence on the global financial system today, and we need to be ready to take part in this process too. The aim we all share is to ensure our own financial security and economic stability, and in this respect functioning financial centres at the international and regional levels are of course the most effective instrument for ensuring international influence and reaching the national goals that each individual country sets for itself.

We cannot afford to fall behind in the timetable we have outlined and in carrying out the instructions that have been given. Developing this financial centre remains a top priority for our country and depends directly on our efforts to resolve two issues. 

The first of these tasks concerns the international financial centre’s financial architecture. Russia must develop a centre offering all of the main types of financial instruments. We need to introduce in an optimum timeframe everything that we have been working on introducing over these last years, namely, international financial reporting and accounting standards for issuers and for the regulators and supervisory bodies. This will enable us to participate more effectively in developing the global financial system, and of course will also make our economy more open and predictable and improve our still far from ideal investment climate.

The second task is to develop the city infrastructure the financial centre will need. Our task is to put Moscow on the level of the world’s financial capitals. There are problems that we all know in the way. Of course we will use globally recognised criteria and standards. It is no good just saying that Moscow is a fine place in itself, a city offering a good life and many opportunities. We need to actually do something to make this reality. 

We need to make greater efforts to ensure public security in Moscow and resolve transport problems (which of course need to be addressed with or without the financial centre), because convenience for the public is the city administration’s top priority of course. But resolving Moscow’s transport problems and making it easier to get around the city are essential for developing the international financial centre too.

It is also essential of course to develop the required information environment too, so that those taking part in the financial centre’s work do not sense any digital gap between us and the countries and centres where they are used to working.

”Our task is to put Moscow on the level of the world’s financial capitals.“

The last thing I wanted to tell you today is that I signed the Executive Order on Measures to Improve Government Regulation of Financial Market. This order attaches the Federal Service for Insurance Supervision to the Federal Financial Markets Service (this is a matter we discussed). The Federal Financial Markets Service will take over the newly attached service’s insurance supervisory functions and obtain specific powers, including with regard to legal regulation, control and supervision of the financial markets, with the exception of banking and auditing activity. 

I hope this will strengthen work on the financial market and bolster the opportunities for legal regulation in this area. We must carry out everything that we agreed on, and the Government must ensure that this work continues uninterrupted, divide up the regulatory functions, and submit to the State Duma the draft federal law making amendments to the relevant legislation.

Let’s get to work.

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