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President of Russia Vladimir Putin: Have you already started to work fully on these matters?

Deputy Prime Minister Marat Khusnullin: Yes, Mr President, we have started.

I would like to inform you about the implementation of national projects. This is our key task, what we deal with. A Presidium meeting on the implementation of national projects was held where I was assigned an area of responsibility covering three national projects – Affordable Housing and Comfortable Urban Environment, Safe and High-Quality Roads, and the Comprehensive Plan for the Development of Transport Infrastructure. I was also instructed to deal with regional policy.

I can mention several positive points today: all the projects are being fully financed. Our working group is monitoring these projects on a daily basis. We perform full check of the contracts together with the regions, check if anyone has any problems.

At the meeting of the Council for the Local Self-Government Development we submitted for your consideration a proposal to establish a coordinating body like a headquarters for implementing the construction project.

Vladimir Putin: Yes, I remember.

Marat Khusnullin: Thank you, Mr President. The decision has been made and the headquarters established. It includes all regional authorities, all governors and all federal government bodies.

Every day we work in a regular course of business and once a week we meet for a teleconference. There are plenty of issues. We have decided to cut down on time for decision-making and information exchange.

The main problem is who has any problems with implementing national projects and what are these problems. We discuss several dozen issues during each teleconference.

Here is one of the positive points. Last time you instructed us to help the flood victims in the Irkutsk Region. We reviewed your instruction at our headquarters and made all the decisions we needed to make in a week. And additional funding – three billion – was transferred in just one week as well.

We are carrying out a programme on helping some of the regions with low level of socioeconomic development. For now, you instructed us to discuss it as a separate programme. The funding for it has already been allocated. We reviewed ten programmes and have already signed the first one with the Kurgan Region.

We will prepare and approve all the remaining programmes together with our colleagues from the ministries. In other words, we plan on providing the regions with additional funding for their development during the first quarter of this year.

We have also compiled a plan for visiting the regions. First of all, we discussed those regions which raise the most questions with the Government members.

I drafted all the plans for such trips myself. We hope that this administrative work will help us promptly resolve all issues and that we will fulfil all the tasks of this national project.

Vladimir Putin: All right. Are there any specific problems or difficulties that you notice?

Marat Khusnullin: Mr President, all the difficulties are of working nature. I cannot say that there is something unmanageable, no. All problems can be managed.

All the funding has been allocated, all powers have been given. Now we must work and carry out all the plans. I think we can do everything.

Vladimir Putin: Good.

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