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President of Russia Dmitry Medvedev: The year is ending, and it is time to sum up the outcomes of the year.

I think that overall, our country, the Russian Federation, carried itself through 2008 commendably. We confidently achieved the goals that we had made for ourselves; overall, we developed, expanded all of the main positions that we set out to do within the framework of the 2020 Concept, and met our goals within the framework of our shorter-term and medium term plans.

Of course, there were several fundamental and dramatic events that had an influence on our progress. I am referring to the crisis in the Caucasus, the Georgian aggression against South Ossetia, which divided the year into distinct parts, and which showed that our country has economic opportunities and sufficient military power in order to protect the interests of its citizens, to protect Russia’s interests, and to restore justice.

I feel that the lessons of this crisis are particularly relevant in the context of an entire world that is facing a global financial crisis. In essence, we were also forced to begin preparing for these events in the second part of the year. It was obvious that negative trends in the world economy and the world financial system had been increasing, but it became particularly apparent during the second part of the year, in autumn.

Although we are well aware of the reasons for these trends, they are really not rooted in our economic problems; they are on a different plane. We are basically paying the price for a series of irresponsible decisions made in other countries, which fueled their own economy at the expense of increasing global risk, and ultimately led to the unfortunate consequences that the entire world is living with today. In fact, a large part of your current activity is a response to these very difficult problems.

I feel that lately, the government has been able to achieve a lot in this context. We have been able to make a series of important decisions, which nevertheless stopped the unraveling of financial problems, and restored an overall normal situation in the area of banking. These decisions are intended to bring us through the most difficult part of the global financial crisis, well-prepared.

Of course, many factors affect our work. Nevertheless, the work that has been done during the last eight years has paved a fairly solid foundation for getting through this adversity in the least painful way possible. That is why we have the anti-crisis program being implemented by the government today. In my opinion, it is balanced; of course, it is not ideal, because there is no such thing as an ideal program, but it nevertheless responds to the most difficult issues and problems. And, as any program, it may be corrected. Changes are made to it – you make these changes literally every week, or even more often, when the Prime Minister conducts the corresponding meetings. And that is probably the only way that we should deal with this situation. There is no way to approve documents or a set of instructions for the government to work with over the course of six months, and so a new situation emerges. We create the program as we go, and in my opinion, for the moment, it is working.

As for our priorities, I think that (as you have already discussed today) they have not changed. Our priorities are the development of our country – innovative development of our country in the direction that we set for ourselves some time ago, before 2020: modernization and maximum support for social services, and the development of business activity. This is the development direction for our government in the coming years. There is no kind of crisis that should get in the way of our agenda. We can correct some things, and we will even be obligated to do so. These kinds of outcomes, of course, take a toll on our economy in a fairly serious way. Macroeconomic proportions must change, but the main direction of development should not change.

I would like to ask all members of government, as well as our colleagues from the State Duma and the Federation Council, to pay particularly close attention to social services, because that is the area that most interests citizens, and while perhaps we can limit any of our spending in other areas, social services should remain our highest priority in government development. It should remain under constant control by government, law-makers, all non-governmental organizations, and parliamentary parties, as this is the most important component of our lives. And those are the very decisions that have recently been made by the government on its own, or which were suggested by the government to the Duma and the Federation Council; they are directed toward supporting social services, maintaining the social standards that we have been creating over the past several years, which have provided a high level of stability in the development of our country and our society.

And there is another very important topic in today’s environment. Of course, we may have different points of view regarding various problems, but in the context of such global challenges, it is very important for the authorities to remain united. In my opinion, today we are achieving this. The President of the Russian Federation, the Government of the Russian Federation, and the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation are essentially working in accord with one another, in very close contact, resolving all the problems that currently stand before our society. It seems to me that this is a constant that must remain in place throughout the entirety of the period ahead of us; otherwise, we will create substantial problems in the development of our country.

Despite the difficulties that we are addressing today, I would like to say that we have nevertheless made a step forward over the last year, in the development of social services, the improvement of quality of live for our people, and in the development of a real economy, in production industry. And our goal is to maintain these opportunities to the greatest extent in the upcoming year.

I would like to thank the Government of the Russian Federation, Chairman of the Cabinet Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin, and our colleagues in the Federation Council and State Duma for their work in 2008; I would also like to express my hope that in the future, we will continue to work just as synchronously, thoroughly, attentively, and cooperatively on resolving the problems that stand before our state and our society. Obviously, the ultimate goal of our work is the development of our country and the improvement of our peoples’ lives. We will base our work in the upcoming year on these principles.

My respected colleagues, I would like to thank you all very much for your work, and wish you a Happy New Year!