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President of Russia Dmitry Medvedev: Dear colleagues,

I have come here today so that we can get together to discuss in detail two main issues.

The first issue is the Republic of Ingushetia’s social and economic development and solutions to its urgent social and economic problems – the problems of concern to all who live in the Republic, and indeed to the whole country.

The second issue I want to discuss is that of ensuring a normal security environment, fighting crime and bringing down the crime rate in the Republic – in short, the whole range of security-related issues.

What can I say? That there are many social and economic problems is eminently clear, and they have been a long time in the making. These problems include a slow growth rate, insufficient investment, low production results, big projects that ought to be going ahead but, unfortunately, are not.

The figures paint a complicated picture and are no cause for joy. They are worse than in the other republics in the Southern Federal District. These problems are further compounded by the unemployment situation and the need to create new jobs.

This does not mean that nothing was done earlier to address these problems, but today we really need to speed up progress. True, the current economic situation is far from easy in general, and we do have financial problems caused by the financial crisis, but this does not mean that we should stop our regional development work, all the more so when it comes to resolving the complex problems a number of regions, including the Republic of Ingushetia, face.

The main thrust of our work so far in this area, primarily through cooperation between the federal and regional authorities, has been the Southern Russia Programme, which covers the period through to 2012 and has various components.

We are currently looking at setting up a separate programme (Regional Development Minister Viktor Basargin will speak in more detail about this), a separate federal targeted programme specifically for the development of the Republic of Ingushetia. This could be a much more effective development tool. The most important thing of course is not drawing up the programme but giving it the real funding it needs and carrying out the real, full-scale coordinated work that needs to go ahead here in Ingushetia.

I would like to say a few words on social development. Ingushetia faces the same kinds of problems in this area as Russia as a whole, and southern Russia in particular. There is a lack of various types of social institutions such as day-care centres, and this in a situation when the Republic is showing a high birth-rate. We therefore have a duty to increase this work significantly.

There are also problems with equipment for schools and medical institutions, although some progress has been made in this area of late. I discussed this just before with the President of Ingushetia.

Of course, the national project has helped improve the situation a little, but this is still far from enough. We need to continue work on the national programmes, continue implementing the national projects for education, healthcare and affordable housing construction.

At the same time, you also need to look at programmes of your own. All of these issues should be addressed by the federal targeted programme and by your local programmes. The Republic’s people need to be able to see the change for the better – this is the most important goal.

The second issue on which I propose exchanging views and drafting a series of instructions at federal and regional level, is that of fighting crime. This covers crimes against the state – terrorist acts and other crimes in the state area – and also crime in general.

The situation in this area is very complex and I would go as far as to say that emergency measures are needed. This requires full-scale balanced coordination between all the different agencies, with particular attention going to the Ministry for Internal Affairs and its offices.

By the way, I would like to inform you all that I have just signed a decree today appointing Ruslan Abdulagapovich Meyriev as the Republic’s Minister for Internal Affairs.

It is vital at the same time to ensure cooperation with the Federal Security Service and the Ministry for Internal Affairs’ federal structures located here in the Republic. The most important thing here is to draw up a system of measures and a work programme for the coming months. I know that the President of Ingushetia has already begun this work. We will have another meeting in a while in Moscow to discuss steps in this area, taking into account the decisions and recommendations that come out of today’s meeting.

These are the issues before us then. Of course, we can examine other issues too, but I think that the biggest priorities right now are to ensure decent living conditions for the people and ensure security. These are both essential conditions for progress and development.