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The meeting was attended by Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin, Chief of Staff of the Presidential Executive Office Anton Vaino, First Deputy Prime Minister Andrei Belousov, First Deputy Chief of Staff of the Presidential Executive Office Sergei Kirienko, Deputy Prime Minister and Chief of Staff of the Government Executive Office Dmitry Grigorenko, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Industry and Trade Denis Manturov, Deputy Prime Minister and Presidential Plenipotentiary Representative in the Far Eastern Federal District Yury Trutnev, Deputy Prime Ministers Viktoria Abramchenko, Tatyana Golikova, Alexander Novak and Dmitry Oreshkin, Presidential Aide Maxim Oreshkin and Minister of Economic Development Maxim Reshetnikov. The following officials were also invited to the meeting: Minister of Culture Olga Lyubimova, Minister of Healthcare Mikhail Murashko, Minister of Transport Vitaly Savelyev, Sakhalin Region Governor and Chairman of the State Council Commission on Investment Valery Limarenko, Chelyabinsk Region Governor and Chairman of the State Council Commission on the Economy and Finances Alexei Teksler, Deputy Finance Minister Alexei Sazanov, Head of the Executive Committee of the Russian Popular Front Mikhail Kuznetsov and Chairman of the Delovaya Rossiya National Public Organisation Alexei Repik.

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President of Russia Vladimir Putin: Good afternoon, colleagues,

Today, our agenda includes investment policy in the regions and implementation of the roadmaps on improving the business climate. Mr Belousov will give a report on this.

But first I would like to ask Ms Golikova a question. Ms Golikova, in 2025, we will celebrate the centenary of Artek. Obviously, there is still time, but the summer season is starting. How is Artek preparing for this season?

Deputy Prime Minister Tatyana Golikova: Good afternoon, Mr President, colleagues.

Mr President, in accordance with your Executive Order on the celebrations of the centenary of the Artek International Children’s Centre, the Government established an organising committee which is drafting a plan for major events.

We were drafting this plan, considering that today, Artek is a unique international children’s centre. I would like to say a few words about it.

Artek has grown, both in terms of content and infrastructure, since it was established nearly a century ago; the children's centre annually serves more than 40,000 children, compared with 320 in 1925. Talented children are recruited from Russia as well as foreign countries. No other country in the world has an international children's centre like Artek. I would like to talk about two priorities in the centre’s development.

The first one naturally has to do with education. Modern Artek is an educational centre where unique methods are used to promote child development and education. These methods are based on the principles of traditional Russian education and adjusted to take into account the challenges and tasks facing the country today. It is also a federal-level platform for the training of qualified personnel. Artek studies and replicates the best practices of teacher training and retraining, and offers internships in education, health improvement and recreation for children.

I would like to say that in 2019, Artek reopened the oldest school for teachers, which was established as far back as 1965, where dozens of teachers from our country were trained. In 2021, Artek opened a proprietary professional growth program for director’s advisors on child development, where advisers are trained before starting work at school, where they learn advanced methods.

On July 20, 2022, Artek hosted the first constituent assembly of the Russian Movement of Children and Youth. This year, under your instructions, Artek opened a branch in Sevastopol in the Tauric Chersonesos History and Archaeology Park.

The second priority of Artek's development that we strongly support is definitely infrastructure.

In 2014, when Artek was returned to our country, it could not house a large number of children due to substandard infrastructure. Thanks to the programme for the development of the centre adopted on your instructions in 2015, a major project was launched to build and renovate the centre’s facilities and amenities.

I mentioned that Artek serves more than 40,000 children a year. But 2019, the pre-pandemic year, was a record year when Artek had more than 43,000 children. Our colleagues from other countries sent children, and children from 86 countries participated in sessions at Artek.

The most pressing infrastructure development issues have been successfully dealt with in Artek since 2015 as part of the programme I mentioned earlier, including the construction, renovation and overhaul of over 288,000 sq m of premises with 96,500 sq m of housing, as well as 23 kilometres of roads and 19 kilometres of utilities. In 2015–2020, we invested 36 billion rubles in Artek’s facilities and resources.

Large-scale construction and renovation of the facilities and resources are included in the second phase of the programme, which will last until 2025. The opening of a new children's camp, Solnechny, is under special supervision, since it will provide accommodation to 10,000 more children.

(Tatyana Golikova went on to describe the construction of Camp Solnechny, which consists of 11 major capital construction projects.)

The action plan contains anniversary and festive cultural, educational and organisational events with mass participation. All of them are designed to make Artek a more popular destination. With the international level of Artek in mind, we are planning to hold international competitions and exhibitions with the participation of children from other countries, children of Russian descent living abroad, as well as Artek guests from other countries who visited Artek in the past, including at the foreign-based Rossotrudnichestvo offices.

Of course, the international children's festival in Artek will come as the biggest event in the history of the camp.

Celebrations of Artek’s anniversary will include more than just cultural events. We are aware that the programme will end in 2025, but this does not mean that we will stop making infrastructural improvements. Of course, we are thinking about extending this programme to 2030 and adopting its next, third phase, which will largely mean rounding out the work at Artek, thus making it, pardon my slang, the coolest international camp.

Thank you, Mr President. We will keep tabs on this project every step of the way.

Vladimir Putin: Good.

Speaking of improving the health of children, we have conducted check-ups of over 300,000 children in Novorossiya and Donbass. How did it go, and what needs to be done now that we have the results?

Tatyana Golikova: Mr President, you know that we are seriously working to modernise the healthcare system in all four new regions of the Russian Federation. The relevant law was adopted and entered in force on March 1. With your permission, I will report on the stages of the work we have done and, considering your attention to children’s medical examinations, I will sum up these results.

First, we focused on standards and regulations. We are working on all of them with our colleagues. The transition period for all areas will last until 2026. I will recall that, under the law, medical care for residents of the new regions until the end of this year will be funded from their budgets with respective federal budget support.

Starting January 1, 2024, medical assistance will be funded under the Russian Federation’s current programme of state guarantees. This means that until December 31, 2023, all residents of the new regions must have compulsory medical insurance policies. This will allow them to fully enter the system of compulsory medical insurance from January 1, 2024.

(Tatyana Golikova described the difficulties of issuing compulsory medical insurance policies due to the ongoing hostilities in these areas. She also spoke about the measures planned for her recent trip to the Kherson and Zaporozhye regions. Ms Golikova also talked about medical staffing, remote education for medical students with an opportunity for practical work in neighbouring Russian regions, restoration, major repairs and construction of new medical facilities, assistance for medical institutions on the territory of other Russian regions and the incorporation of the new regions into the programme for modernising primary healthcare).

A hundred mobile medical units, including 50 that were used for children’s preventive medical exams, were delivered to the regions in 2022 and 2023 for organising medical, sanitary and emergency medical care. In the same period, 87 medical facilities were restored under a special infrastructure project. Another 98 facilities are supposed to be completed before the end of the year. The further development plan provides for equipping oncological dispensaries and vascular departments – four of each this year. Later, we will continue this work.

Mr President, at the same time I would like to say that the programme for upgrading primary medical care proved to be much in demand in the new regions. In some places, this was due to wear and tear whereas others did not have any primary healthcare at all because Ukraine’s preventive medical care system had been almost completely destroyed.

Now, with regard to what we have accomplished since 2022 in terms of making medical care arrangements. As you may be aware, we were heavily involved in organising the work of travelling medical teams: 79,000 patients received medical help, more than 22,000 surgeries were performed, two multidisciplinary field hospitals were deployed, and 470 patients were sent to other regions to receive high-tech medical help. Medical examinations for over 337,000 children have been conducted by over 450 specialist doctors.

Based on the exam results, 30.5 percent of the children were signed up for follow-up care, a little over 3 percent of the children were encouraged to go to the hospital for more tests and treatment, 2.1 percent received planned surgical treatment, and 117 children were committed to hospitals in federal centres and major regional medical institutions. We keep doing this.

In 2022, medicines worth 7.5 billion rubles were sent to the new regions, and medicines are now available for patients in over 2,000 pharmacies. A phased-in provision of patients with cardiovascular diseases with medicines will start this year and more than 90-percent coverage will have been attained by 2025.

Starting this year, patients with rare and orphan diseases will have the cost of expensive medicines covered from the federal budget. Also, 15 children affected by such illnesses are already provided with the necessary medicines thanks to the Circle of Kindness Foundation. Without a doubt, patients with socially significant diseases will be fully supplied with the medications. <…>

Finally, there is one other thing that I would like to discuss. We continue to work on including the new regions of the Russian Federation in a single digital public healthcare loop. This year, we plan to purchase 5,000 workstations in order to provide telemedicine consultations, among other things.

Taking advantage of today's meeting, I would like to sincerely thank our colleagues from the new regions, the doctors and nurses who went to oversee the work in the new regions, for their selfless work in providing medical care to people in the new regions amid challenging circumstances.

Thank you, Mr President.

Vladimir Putin: Yes, thank you.

As for the follow-up care, it went in a well-organised manner and is quite effective, so, I think we need to take the extra step and conduct medical screening for the adult population. Please submit proposals for that.

Tatyana Golikova: By all means, we will submit proposals to you, Mr President, and do what we need to do. Our colleagues already asked about this when we visited them. I think the demand will be high in all four regions.

Thank you.

Vladimir Putin: Good. Thank you.

Ms Lyubimova, I asked you to pay special attention to children’s art schools in the regions of the Russian Federation. I know this effort has been going on for almost two years now. What are the results?

Minister of Culture Olga Lyubimova: Mr President.

Another academic year is over, and now it’s time for graduation and entry exams. So, today I would like to report on the development of the art school network.

Every year, over 250,000 children graduate from children’s art schools. We are seeing growing interest in children’s art school education.

Under the Culture national project, we have already equipped 1,173 children’s art schools with musical instruments, equipment and study materials.

New teams are also being established. Thus, a new ensemble has appeared at the children’s art school in Yakutia’s Verkhnekolymsky district with the delivery of traditional indigenous instruments. There are many examples like this.

Since 2020, we have been conducting major repairs and restoration of buildings for children’s art schools following your instructions. We have already upgraded 630 buildings.

The network of children’s art schools in our country has been expanded with institutions in the new regions. About 30,000 talented children study in 147 art schools in the Donetsk and Lugansk people’s republics and the Zaporozhye and Kherson regions. We are tailoring art school programmes in the new regions to the federal requirements. Teachers and directors are upgrading their qualifications at the country’s leading art universities.

In 2023, we are planning to provide equipment for 51 art schools in the new regions.

Today, I would also like to report on guest performances by already established companies under the national tour and concert plan.

Vladimir Putin: Go ahead, please.

Olga Lyubimova: In 2022, there were 1,900 theatre shows and concerts in 89 regions. Performances and concerts by famous artists were held not only in all 16 Russian cities with a population of 1 million or more, but also in small towns and rural communities with populations under 1,000. In 2023, there will be shows for over 800,000 audience members.

This international programme creates unparalleled opportunities for maintaining creative and professional ties with Russia in today’s circumstances. Almost all Russian language theatres from near abroad said they were ready to be part of a single tour plan. This year, theatres in Abkhazia and South Ossetia, as well as our colleagues from Kazakhstan, Belarus, Uzbekistan, and Armenia will come to us, and the Bolshoi Theatre of Belarus has opened its international large tour season 2023.

In our opinion, the inclusion of teams from the four new regions in the federal tour system was the most important part of the process for integrating the new regions into the country’s single cultural space.

In February-May 2023, about 100 shows took place as part of the tour of five Donetsk performance groups that visited 50 Russian cities. Now, a tour of the Lugansk Russian Drama Theatre is on, the shows of which will be enjoyed by spectators in Krasnodar, Maikop, Stavropol, Elista and Rostov-on-Don.

Tours of the State Dance Ensemble Vainakh from the Chechen Republic were held this year for the first time in cities in the Kherson and Zaporozhye regions.

The children's programme remains an extremely popular part of the tour plan. Young Russian theatre goers enjoy the performances of youth theatres and puppet theatres.

On May 20, jointly with the Sergei Obraztsov Moscow Puppet Theatre, the Lugansk Puppet Theatre hosted a premiere of a show based on Russian folk tales. The Obraztsov Theatre made puppets and theatre props for this premiere, which they donated to their Lugansk colleagues after the show.

I cannot fail to note the circus tour that started in the Lugansk People's Republic with the participation of leading performers from the Russian State Circus Company.

Mr President, we see how warmly the residents of the regions welcome our famous performers and the effect produced by the single tour system that has been revived in our country. Given the high demand for this work, it will, of course, continue.

Thank you.

Vladimir Putin: Excellent. Thank you.

Mr Belousov, please update us on the status of the investment policy in the regions. The floor is yours.

First Deputy Prime Minister Andrei Belousov: Mr President, colleagues.

The introduction of an investment standard in the regions of the Russian Federation is at the core of the regional investment policy today. This work is being carried out under the Presidential instruction that was issued at the St Petersburg International Economic Forum in 2021.

The regional investment standard is about creating and introducing universal, clear and investor-friendly regulations in all regions of the country, primarily, for implementing medium-sized projects in non-resource sectors that are not subject to agreements on protecting and encouraging capital investment.

The regional investment standard consists of five major blocs.

(Andrei Belousov went on to list these five blocs which include an investment policy statement that clearly sets forth the region’s obligations to the investor; investment committees for prompt resolution of the problems that investors may run into during project implementation and for the protection of their rights and interests; development agencies which are entities that engage in attracting private investment, advising and supporting entrepreneurs; investment maps which are an information resource in the form of a map of the region that investors can use to access the information they may need about infrastructure, preferential treatment, or location of mineral deposits – eight information tiers, in all; a code of investment rules that includes intuitive and streamlined algorithms, including with the use of digital technologies covering nine areas that are of key importance for investors, including obtaining various types of permits, titles, and connections to infrastructure networks.)

The regional investment standard contains every tool that a region may need if it wants to boost its investment appeal and build sustainable relationships with investors.

The regional investment standard was developed by the Government in conjunction with the commission of the State Council on Investment led by Governor of the Sakhalin Region Valery Limarenko. The standard was initially tested in 2021 by 12 pilot regions.

I would like to highlight the role of Delovaya Rossiya which was instrumental in forming a dedicated project office and the support accorded by the internal political bloc of the Presidential Executive Office. Major infrastructure companies, such as Gazprom, Rosseti and Russian Railways, have joined this effort. <…>

I would especially like to emphasise the fact that new territories were included in the effort to implement the regional investment standard, and their requests and suggestions were taken into account.

Colleagues!

The end goal of implementing the regional investment standard is definitely to boost investment in the regions. But this growth depends on many factors.

The plan is to evaluate the result based on the national investment climate ranking. Starting this year, ranking methodology includes metrics that assess the quality of the regional investment standard tools. The first results will be presented at the St Petersburg International Economic Forum in June. The regions that have successfully implemented the investment standard are being stimulated with subsidies provided as part of the investment tax deduction mechanism. In 2021, 19 regions received 959 million rubles from the budget, and last year, that amount increased to almost 3 billion rubles. Further steps in this direction were discussed recently at the Delovaya Rossiya forum.

Let me emphasise that the successful implementation of the regional investment standard is the “entrance ticket,” the eligibility criteria for the investment tax deduction.

To exchange best practices in implementing the investment standard, a communication channel has been established with presidential plenipotentiary envoys to federal districts.

Colleagues!

Along with the development and implementation of the regional investment standard at the federal level to improve the business climate, work is underway to optimise the regulatory rules for doing business. This should accelerate investment in industrial facilities and reduce costs. This is one of the initiatives supported by Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin.

The roadmap for the reengineering of industrial construction regulations includes 63 measures, of which 32 have already been implemented. Another 19 need to be completed this year.

In 2020, when we were just starting this work, building a reference industrial facility (an average of 15 industrial facilities) took about 67 months. Due to the implementation of these measures last year, the construction time was reduced by 6.5 months, to 61.5. Our goal is to accelerate the construction of a reference industrial facility to 54 months by next year, and to less than 40 months by 2030, which is comparable with the best international practices.

Mr President, colleagues,

Improving the investment climate at the federal and regional levels was among the key factors that made it possible to prevent an investment drawdown last year. Investment in fixed assets amounted to 27.9 trillion rubles in all the regions combined, up 4.6 percent in real terms on 2021.

This year, the regional investment standard will be introduced and confirmed by business associations across the country. The total amount of investment in fixed capital is planned at almost 30 trillion rubles.

We plan to keep on doing this work by way of standardising our approaches to the investment policy and providing a seamless investor support system in every region.

Thank you.

Vladimir Putin: Thank you very much.

Colleagues, indeed, we have been doing this since the 2021 St Petersburg Economic Forum, when the instructions to that end were formulated. Much has been accomplished, and a wide-scale effort is underway. In principle, Mr Belousov said it all, and there are many issues that need our attention.

I would also like to thank Mr Limarenko and his colleagues who worked at the State Council.

(At the request of the President, Valery Limarenko made additional remarks concerning the report delivered by Mr Belousov and spoke about the specific efforts to implement the investment standard, citing, in particular, the Sakhalin Region, of which he is the governor. According to him, there are about 500 different potential projects, including hotel compounds, the creation of various production facilities, and the construction of utilities involving boiler plants and running water; there are separate plots for breeding aquaculture on the Kuril Islands. Investors can choose any of them. Mr Limarenko said Mr Belousov had put together a good team, and this work is being extended to the rest of the Russian Federation. A State Council meeting to discuss this issue will be held later this year.)

Vladimir Putin: I said earlier that the programme had been deployed. I would also like to mention the Government in this regard: indeed, this is an important project. Getting an investment project off the ground is a major effort as is, but it is twice or even three times as important now. The fact that we are supporting this work in this manner is of great importance.

In 2022 – Mr Belousov mentioned it earlier – 19 regions that confirmed the implementation of the investment standard programme were issued subsidies in the amount of almost 3 billion rubles. This effort must be coordinated with the Finance Ministry in a timely manner to make sure everything goes smoothly. This programme must operate exactly as planned.

I think we did the right thing when, starting in 2021, we chose this area of activity and made arrangements accordingly. I am sure we will see the results in the form of visible improvements in the regions.

Thank you very much. I hope you will keep at it and see this work to the end as originally planned.

Best wishes. Thank you.