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At a regular cabinet meeting in the Kremlin the President asked First Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Ivanov to congratulate the creators of a new Iskander-M system on the cruise missile’s successful tests, tests that Mr Ivanov had reported to the President.

The First Deputy Prime Minister also informed the President about implementing a programme to develop the Ust-Luga port in the Leningrad region and other Baltic ports, and also about the project to construct a versatile ice tanker in the Admiral Shipyards in St Petersburg. In connection with this Vladimir Putin expressed his support for further developing Russian ports, including in the Far North.

At the President’s request, Health and Social Development Minister Mikhail Zurabov cited findings on Russia’s demographic situation in the first four months of 2007. Statistics show a more positive trend than before. From January to April 2007 nearly 23,000 more children were born in Russia than in the same period in 2006. The mortality rate continues to fall: 138,000 fewer Russians died in 2006 than they did in 2005; and, in the first four months of 2007, 52,5000 fewer people died than they had in the equivalent period last year.

The Minister referred to the trend of reduced infant mortality as very positive. The mortality rate of children under one year old fell by 15 percent compared with 2006 and in some regions it fell by 20 percent or more.

President Putin recalled the different causes that affect the infant mortality rate in Russia and abroad, and noted that Minister Zurabov has persistent opponents in the professional environment. The Health and Social Development Minister answered by saying that domestic medicine is prepared to switch to a different statistical regime, closer to a European one, including through the simultaneous development of technologies to help extremely underweight premature babies who only weigh 500 grammes at birth.