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ASI General Director Svetlana Chupsheva: Mr President, you have set us a task to boost economic growth and to launch a new investment cycle. I would like to say a few words about how the Agency for Strategic Initiatives is contributing to this.

We have just been discussing the quality-of-life ranking. I would like to add that we are now finalising the investment appeal ranking as well – on a national scale – taking into account the new tasks that you have set, that the regions have set, and most importantly, taking into account entrepreneurs’ requirements for the ease of doing business.

What have we done? We have added several new indicators for evaluation, such as obtaining permits, gaining access, connecting to gas and water, as well as issues and procedures with the lease of land, land plots. There is a whole new block for the evaluation and creation of infrastructure for technology entrepreneurship.

There is something I wanted to ask. We have always measured administrative pressure on business for the ranking – everything related to inspections by various authorities. We have repeatedly raised the issue of forceful pressure on business. Now we can take a second step here: the For Business platform we have been implementing together with the Prosecutor General’s Office, the Investigative Committee, the FSB, and the Ministry of the Interior – representatives of all these agencies at the level of deputy heads are included in the platform’s supervisory board. Entrepreneurs from any region can submit a complaint to this platform, a petition, a report saying the business disagreed with an inspection, with investigative actions or criminal prosecution. And it is very important…

President of Russia Vladimir Putin: No intermediaries.

Svetlana Chupsheva: Yes. And it is very important that each complaint is considered by these agencies’ central offices. The effort has already become systematic, and it is very important that our colleagues in the regions have joined in – we organise joint meetings at the [federal] district level, and discuss matters with regional authorities, with entrepreneurs, and law enforcement agencies; we do awareness-raising work, and we get lawyers involved in that. Would it be possible to add these measurements as monitoring indicators to the national investment ranking methodology, to measure annual changes in all constituent regions? We could use it for adjustments. We will see which regions record the greatest pressure from the law enforcement agencies, and will work this out with the central offices of the respective departments. If you support us, we are ready to work it out with our colleagues.

Vladimir Putin: Yes, this is a good idea.

Svetlana Chupsheva: Mr President, here comes the second part. I mentioned this as a new strategy as well and it is about targeted work with the constituent regions of the Russian Federation, when we, guided by an analytical toolkit in the form of feedback from residents and entrepreneurs, decide what projects or breakthrough growth points can be launched in the territories. After that, we will join efforts with the local teams, analysts and the governor to create such projects. Some governors have already come up with their first reports. It is critically important that Maxim Oreshkin works with us.

Most importantly, the region receives federal support for these projects, which are needed primarily by residents and businesses, in terms of infrastructure support and being included in national projects and federal programmes.

The third block, where we also see major opportunities for new drivers for the regional economies, includes interregional projects that will provide a multiplier effect. We are currently carrying out several such projects. One of them concerns the social sphere and medicine. It is an interregional project for children’s centres providing specialised high-tech medical help for children.

Today, we have regional and federal centres, but there are many complicated cases across the country where specialised medical help is needed.

Doctors in Moscow or St Petersburg have constant practice, whereas specialists in remote regions in Siberia and the Far Eastern Federal District simply cannot gain enough experience in such operations or building such a system for providing medical help. An interregional project for an interregional centre can help. I am not talking about new infrastructure. All of that can be based on existing regional infrastructure.

We propose launching a pilot project in the Far Eastern Federal District which has the highest infant mortality rates nationwide. The Far Eastern Federal District’s regions are supportive of this idea. We went there and toured the regional children’s hospitals in the Primorye Territory and the Khabarovsk Territory together with federal specialists, experts, and officials from the Ministry of Healthcare.

What makes a medical centre? First, human resources, including proper staffing and mentoring by federal specialists. It also includes properly equipping such centres to comply with international and domestic protocols, with federal centres providing such medical help. Proper routing and transport services are also part of this, since logistics must be brought up to code as well.

One way or another, we have estimates by territory, and we have practical experience. We are prepared, in conjunction with the Ministry of Healthcare, federal specialists, and the Association of Russian Surgeons, to develop regulations governing such interregional centres, as well as requirements and criteria to identify the diseases that make particular young patients eligible for treatment at the interregional centres. The tentative bases include the Khabarovsk Territory (Khabarovsk Regional Children’s Hospital No. 1) and Vladivostok (Territorial Children’s Hospital No. 1) which have adequate staff and the necessary infrastructure. So, with your support, we are prepared, in conjunction with the Ministry of Healthcare and the regions, to work on this pilot project. According to the experts, child mortality rates can be reduced by 10 to 20 percent in one year.

Vladimir Putin: We will discuss this with Ms Golikova and Mr Murashko. We will work on it together, this is a good idea.

Svetlana Chupsheva: Of course. Thank you, Mr President.