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President of Russia Vladimir Putin: Good afternoon, colleagues,

Let me remind you that we have addressed the issue of developing Russia’s electricity grid system many times lately. In 2013, the Rossiyskiye Seti (Russian Grids) company was established and today this company, known as Rosseti, is one of the largest electricity grid companies in the world. It operates over 2 million kilometres of power transmission lines and about half a million substations; over 70 percent of electricity generated in the country is transmitted with Rosseti’s help.

The company’s key mission is to follow a single technical and investment policy in the power supply sector, dovetail the central and local electricity grids in the power industry in general and, finally, organise a reliable and continuous energy supply across the country.

I hope to hear today about how our plans are being implemented and what is being done to improve interaction with consumers. I would like to ask you separately to bring us up to date on how the task of creating Rosseti’s single treasury is being fulfilled. We discussed this issue in the Executive Office and the Government Cabinet and I know that it has been addressed. This mechanism should enhance the transparency of the company’s financial flow and increase its financial stability. Regarding the flow, it is big, running into the trillions of rubles: 2 trillion rubles, I believe.

Next, in recent years, we have significantly simplified the utility connection procedure for enterprises and organisations. Thanks to the efforts undertaken within the framework of the National Entrepreneurial Initiative, many administrative barriers have been removed and grid connection times reduced. In the past year alone, Russia climbed up 24 positions in the World Bank’s Getting Electricity rankings to 29^th place.

Needless to say, it is essential to continue this work, consistently improving the business climate in the country and providing infrastructure conditions for the growth of the national economy and the social sector. At the same time, it is important to dovetail regional development plans, large consumer strategies and the investment programmes of the grid companies themselves.

Newly commissioned power generation capacities, new electricity grids should be fully used, but unfortunately, consumers often underutilise the capacity that they request. It turns out that investment in grid companies is made but does not pay off. All of this impedes further development of the electricity grid sector.

Let’s address these issues thoroughly today and revisit what we discussed at our recent meetings and think about what should be done to improve the situation.

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