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President Putin proposed that a small task group be set up to coordinate the joint efforts of government agencies and public organisations. From the Presidential Executive Office, this job will be done by Presidential Aide Igor Shuvalov.

He called for the consolidation of all public movements and forces. A society divided into small groups with narrow interests is incapable of concentrating on large national projects and still less on the large-scale strategic goals set by the President in his state of the nation address – doubling the GDP, eliminating poverty, and modernising the armed forces.

The President said debates that unfolded in the country made it clear that different public and political forces had their own views and approaches to problem solving, with some differing only tactically, but more often than not entirely opposite, which is natural in an open democratic society. The President thinks that the country’s political and social forces should be able to work together in solving the problems facing Russia.

He also expressed the conviction that economic growth in the country could be achieved only with private energy and initiative, guaranteeing ownership rights and improving the skills of managers, engineers and workers. The President said it was necessary to line up all society’s intellectual resources and engage all forces that put national interest above group, corporative and especially personal interests in the process.

Participants in the meeting included Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov, Federation Council Speaker Sergei Mironov, State Duma Speaker Gennady Seleznyov, Chief of Staff of the Presidential Executive Office Alexander Voloshin, Internal Affairs Minister and United Russia leader Boris Gryzlov, Russian Academy of Sciences President Yury Osipov, heads of parliamentary parties and associations in the State Duma, President of the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs Arkady Volsky, members of the State Council, and chairman of the Independent Trade Unions Federation Mikhail Shmakov.