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The meeting was attended by Deputy Prime Minister of the Government of the Russian Federation – Chief of the Government Staff of the Russian Federation Dmitry Grigorenko, Deputy Prime Minister of the Government of the Russian Federation Alexander Novak, Deputy Chief of Staff of the Presidential Executive Office Maxim Oreshkin, Minister of Economic Development of the Russian Federation Maxim Reshetnikov, Minister of Finance of the Russian Federation Anton Siluanov, Governor of the Central Bank of the Russian Federation (Bank of Russia) Elvira Nabiullina.

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President of Russia Vladimir Putin: Colleagues, good afternoon.

At the VTB Russia Calling! forum and the meeting of the Council for Strategic Development in early December, I emphasised that we were facing a vital systemic task in the economic sector: the transition to a balanced growth with low unemployment and moderate inflation.

Let me remind you that this is a fundamental condition for achieving the national development goals and successfully implementing state programmes and national projects. As you know, they must be launched without delays, on January 1, 2025.

It is clear that lending to the real sector, industry, agriculture, and services is an important factor for the confident economic dynamics, increased investment in the expansion of production, and the creation of new jobs. This means loans both for large businesses and small and medium-sized ones, as well as start-ups.

At the moment, the Government is implementing a whole range of programmes to support lending to both businesses and individuals. They primarily provide for subsidised interest rates. Such preferential loans already take up a significant share of the banking portfolio – about 16 percent, or over 17 trillion rubles, with more than ten trillion of these for preferential mortgage programmes.

The results of this support are quite tangible. If we take mortgage subsidies, then, hundreds of thousands of families have improved their housing conditions using this instrument, and our construction complex has reached record levels of housing construction. Agricultural output is also increasing with access to preferential loans, and the number of people employed in the small business segment is growing.

With the support of the Project Finance Factory, a number of large projects have been launched in the chemical industry, mining, and infrastructure, among other industries.

Today we will also have an in-depth discussion on how credit subsidies are being provided, what effect they have on the work of enterprises, work staffs, entire industries, and on expanding the production capabilities of our economy.

What would I like to add? Of course, we need to continue monitoring the effectiveness of credit support – we understand how important this is today, given the current key rate – and to conduct comprehensive, regular monitoring of how target indicators of relevant programmes are achieved.

As I have already said at a meeting of the Council for National Projects, it is necessary to make a corresponding awareness-building effort, so that both people and entrepreneurs know all about these programmes, their scope, conditions for obtaining such support and deadlines. This would rule out situations when we announce programmes, they are in demand and should apparently gain momentum, but it turns out that their funding has reached the ceiling. I am asking you not to let such things happen.

I would like to note once again that we are working in objective conditions when we have to keep inflation in control, when we are implementing tough budgetary policy approaches and should build the lending policy accordingly. In this connection, it is necessary to adjust soft loan programmes and see to it that they ensure national technological sovereignty and the development of the supply-side economy. It is also necessary to analyse the equitable distribution of risks of key rate increasing among banks, borrowers and the federal budget.

I am also asking you to consider how to correlate soft loans to companies’ entering the stock market. Of course, this applies to cases when such actions are justified and appropriate, specifically with regard to major companies leading the way in their respective sectors. If you remember, I also discussed this issue at the VTB forum. Today, I suggest addressing this issue in more detail.

A separate topic concerns the debt burden of companies partially owned by the state. As I have already said, this burden has recently increased. We therefore need to pay attention to investment programmes of state corporations, their role in balancing the entire corporate lending market. With this in mind, we have to employ a smart, responsible, and I would say, well-balanced approach for managing the loan portfolio of companies partially owned by the state. Today, I am expecting to hear proposals on this issue. We know what we are talking about as we have repeatedly discussed this issue.

Of course, state companies or companies with state share of participation have a special role to play. In this connection, it is important not to overdo it and to avoid voicing extremely tough requirements for investment programmes that they are formulating. At the same time, I repeat, we should give them an opportunity to develop and to implement programmes that the state cannot do without. It is necessary to support the programmes that facilitate corporate growth, as well as that of entire Russian economic sectors. You know what I am talking about.

Let us start working. I give the floor to Maxim Reshetnikov. Mr Reshetnikov, please.

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