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The main subject on the agenda was the contribution that big companies in which the state holds a stake can make to the economic modernisation process.

The President said that, although state-owned enterprises have sizeable investment budgets, spending on innovation is quite a lot lower in Russia than it is in other market economies.

Mr Medvedev called for increased spending on research and development. Companies’ investment programmes should set out specific measures for innovative development and wide-scale introduction of new technology. The President instructed state representatives in these companies to ensure that this work is carried out rapidly, and asked the Presidential Control Directorate to present a report on the work done in three months time.

Mr Medvedev emphasised that companies should focus above all on new technologies developed here in Russia, but at the same time setting up joint ventures and bringing in foreign specialists are also both welcome steps.

The meeting took place at Gazprom offices. Before the meeting, Mr Medvedev had a working meeting with Minister of Telecommunications and Mass Communications Igor Shchegolev who reported on work done so far to carry out the President’s instruction to make frequencies available for third-generation telecommunications and convert frequencies currently in military use. The discussion took place in a car equipped as a mobile radio control unit.