Official website of the President of Russia

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Deputy Prime Minister and Defence Minister Sergei Ivanov on work to create shipbuilding holdings:

The Government has already held a meeting to examine the reform and development concept for the country’s shipbuilding industry.

I met with [Industry and Energy Minister] Viktor Khristenko just yesterday. We have already decided that, unlike in the aircraft manufacturing industry, we will establish several shipbuilding holdings, at least three. We need to set up these holdings in a way that does not create any risks for the country’s defence interests and maintains our position in niches in the shipbuilding sector which are quite well developed here and in which we have already established a certain specialisation on the world shipbuilding market.

I will be able to inform you on concrete proposals after I meet with Viktor Khristenko again the day after tomorrow, as in any case a presidential decree will be required in order to establish these holdings. I think we should be able to complete this work this month or rather, we will complete the first stage, the formal stage of the work, and then begin actually forming the holdings.

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Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Zhukov on implementing the Children of Russia federal targeted programme for 2007–2010:

We will examine this programme at the Government meeting next Thursday. This is a follow-on programme from the programme we implemented in 2003–2006, and its primary aim is to provide good conditions for children’s all-round development and state support for children in difficult circumstances. The programme consists of three main sub-programmes: A Healthy Generation; Gifted Children; and Children and the Family. The Healthy Generation programme aims at providing maternity care that will ensure good and safe conditions for the birth of healthy children. The Gifted Children programme puts in place a state-backed system to identify gifted children and provide targeted support to help them in their development, above all in rural and remote areas.

Finally, the Children and the Family programme concentrates on three main areas: preventing juvenile delinquency and encouraging parents to take more responsibility for their children, addressing the needs of families with disabled children, and helping orphans. The federal budget will provide 10 billion roubles to finance the programme and 36 billion roubles will come from the regional budgets. Regional budgets will thus be responsible for the bulk of the financing, and a further 14 billion roubles will come from extra-budgetary sources.

The main goals we hope this programme will achieve are above all to bring down the infant mortality rate and the death rate among children. We have made progress in this area over recent years but our aim is to bring these indicators down to the European average. Another goal is to increase the number of disabled children receiving rehabilitation services in specialised centres. Our other important goal is to bring down the number of children without parental supervision and increase the number of orphaned children living in families rather than in state children’s homes. These are the programme’s principle objectives.

President Vladimir Putin: This programme needs to given national significance, and the regions and public organisations should be involved as actively as possible in its implementation. This should not be purely bureaucratic work.

Alexander Zhukov: Yes, certainly. As I said, the regions are very involved in the programme’s financing and are providing the bulk of the funds, but another 14 billion roubles will be coming from extra-budgetary sources.