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Developing the coal industry was the main item on the meeting’s agenda. However, the discussion started with matters related to artificial intelligence, the construction of a high-speed railway from Moscow to St Petersburg, training specialists for using artificial intelligence, and the launch of the new Vostok winter complex in Antarctica.

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President of Russia Vladimir Putin: Colleagues, good afternoon.

The main item on today’s agenda deals with energy and developing the key energy sectors, with Sergei Tsivilev, Roman Starovoit and Maxim Reshetnikov as the keynote speakers.

But I suggest that we begin by discussing our current matters. You may have heard that I have just taken part in a session on artificial intelligence as part of a Sber event. In this context, I would like to raise the issue of developing a single service for issuing licences and permits using the e-government services website. We mentioned this topic during our conversation. I know that the Government has been working hard on this agenda.

(Addressing Deputy Prime Minister – Chief of the Government Staff Dmitry Grigorenko) Mr Grigorenko, could you say a few words on this topic, please?

(Dmitry Grigorenko spoke about the Government’s work to reduce the administrative load on businesses, including the improvement of procedures for obtaining various types of licenses and permits. Today, there are over 500 types of permits and over 50 types of licenses, with several million permits and tens of thousands of licenses issued in Russia annually. The work was organised together with businesses. An analysis of all existing licenses and permits was carried out in order to determine what could be reduced, improved, or accelerated. As a result, the average time to obtain a license has decreased by 4.5 times compared to 2021, including the start; the average time to obtain a permit has been halved; and the number of documents submitted to obtain permits has also been halved. The procedure for obtaining a license or permit has gone online, to the Gosuslugi (Public Services) portal. Over three years, the number of requests for licenses and permits on the Gosuslugi portal has increased from 16,000 to about one million. Separately, a feedback service, which is a pre-trial appeal mechanism, has been launched on the portal. This is a simple and easy way for businesses to appeal any decision of a government agency free of charge. Future plans include introducing proactive issuance of licenses and permits, and issuing integrated licenses and permits, so that several interrelated services can be obtained with one application.)

Vladimir Putin: Thank you.

I have brought to you another issue from the events organised by Sber. Mr Gref asked me to discuss issues concerning the plans to implement the Moscow–St Petersburg High Speed Railway project.

(Reports on the topic were presented by Deputy Prime Minister Vitaly Savelyev, Minister of Industry and Trade Anton Alikhanov and President, Chairman of the Management Board of Sberbank German Gref, who also answered the President’s questions.)

Vladimir Putin: I would like to say in this regard that the project’s cost will inevitably increase. It’s obvious. And not only due to the inflation, which after all came to a stop. Above all, it stems from the key interest rate and a rising cost of commercial banks’ loans. It is clear: there are some things you can’t escape.

Yet, on the other hand, I would draw the attention of producers and those in the Government, who supervise the relevant areas of real production: in no way can these objective circumstances be used as a cover to inflate prices without any justification whatsoever but just under the pretext of the key interest rate and inflation.

These things are countable, in general, you can very well calculate such an objective cost increase. All the rest should be brushed off, brushed off by all means, otherwise it will endlessly escalate and result in disrupting all deadlines and in a possible failure of the project.

Still, we have to state that by now all the necessary decisions on the provision of borrowed bank funds have not been made yet. Mr Gref said that if something happens, then we will do certain things. And if it doesn't? The same applies to support measures for rolling stock manufacturers. However, not all decisions have been made yet. Yes, everything is in process, and they must be taken.

I jokingly said about young people loving each other and eager to get married. They love each other and real marriages are certainly made in heaven. But until people have come to the registry office and signed the relevant documents, they are legally not husband and wife. Everything has to be signed and completed, otherwise we will simply disrupt the deadlines or, I repeat, we will nip the project in the bud. Let's turn our attention to it.

I understand the current state of affairs. But we just need to honestly ask ourselves: are we ready to implement it, do we want to do it? If yes, if we are ready – please, do not create additional problems where there are already a lot of them, and let us work together in solidarity within the timeframes that we outlined earlier.

Agreed. We will get back to it a bit later. Let’s do it after December 20 because it is a certain deadline. And we will see what is happening there.

To be continued.