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Vitaly Khotsenko started by saying that he has been heading the region for two years and went on to list some of the lingering challenges the Omsk Region has been facing, in particular, a significant share of non-surfaced roads, dilapidated housing, deteriorating utilities, but noted that the regional government was working on all these fronts.

Speaking about the region’s socioeconomic development, the Governor reported that the gross regional product has exceeded one trillion rubles for the first time. Vladimir Putin noted that fixed capital investment has been on the rise in the Omsk Region, while industrial output increased by 3.3 percent.

During his report, Vitaly Khotsenko mentioned that the Omsk Region had Russia’s second-highest growth rate in agricultural production. Located in Siberia, this territory had a record-high grain yield of over four million tonnes and ranked eighth nation-wide.

The Governor pointed to the loss of talent as one of the key challenges for the Omsk Region and Siberia in general, even though the outflow of people has decreased in recent years. In 2022, the region’s population shrank by 9,500 people, the decline in 2023 was 5,000 people, and 1,400 people in 2024. The Governor talked about positive momentum in defence manufacturing. There were 20,000 employees across 16 enterprises before 2022, but today employment in this sector exceeds 40,000 people and keeps growing. Still, the regional government understands that this trend may not last and is acting to launch new civilian investment projects. Vitaly Khotsenko also mentioned a 17 percent increase in the construction sector compared to 2023 and that salaries have risen by 17.8 percent.

The Governor elaborated on a new investment cycle by stressing that this was a trend for all major corporations, including Gazprom Neft, Titan Group, as well as ECO-Culture and ROST, which are about to launch new greenhouse complexes. The federal government has taken the necessary decisions to ensure that the airport is transferred to the Omsk suburbs by 2028. Located within the city limits, the existing airport hinders the development of Omsk, which is home to over a million residents.

Taken together, these investment projects are worth over a trillion rubles, which involves funding from the region, including for the Omsk airport. The Governor said that the region intended to apply for the treasury infrastructure loan programme in this context in order to carry out these investment projects and asked the President to support these undertakings. Vladimir Putin responded to this request favourably.