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Vladimir Putin: Good afternoon,

I am very happy to see you all here for our usual, already traditional meeting.

Today, I would like to talk about the problems that we have faced in the process of the administrative reforms. I wonder what is your opinions of where we have been successful and where we have been less so.

Does business feel the impact of these administrative reforms and if so — then how? You know that our main goal is to de-bureaucratise the economy. Has this worked and if it has – in what ways? If not, then what else needs to be done? Business representatives like no one else feel all the negative consequences of the state’s unnecessary presence in the economy and overregulation. This is the first point.

Second, I would like to hear your opinion of the effect the decisions made in the sphere of economic legislation have had. How have our actions affected customs regulation? Finally, I am interested in your opinions and would like to discuss with you the reforms the state is planning and pursuing in the social sphere, because the social sphere is, no doubt, of high importance in itself. Strictly speaking, this is the thinking behind all our work: improvements in the social sphere, better living standards and increasing people’s prosperity.

However, the adopted decisions influence the situation in the economy itself; this is a separate field. Therefore, I would like to draw your attention to the problem of housing construction, in particular, development of the mortgage system. We know what is lacking here. What do you think needs to be done first to make this system work more effectively?

Another issue I would like to discuss with you is education, particularly higher technical and vocational education, which we used to call “professional-technical” education in the past.

It is obvious to everyone thatthere is a complete disproportion between the the economic and labor market demands, on the one hand, and the annual output of the education system.

Vocational education is a separate issue. It finds itself in a difficult position: the state is leaving this sphere to some extent, but business has not yet fully arrived there . And still I know that many colleagues present here today are taking care of this matter by training staff for their companies. However, we need to find a golden mean here that would be best in tackling the entire problem. I mean joint efforts by the state and business to solve this important task.

This is the most preliminary set of issues that I would like to discuss.

Of course, both the Prime minister and I are ready to talk on any topic that you believe should be raised in today’s discussion.