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President of Russia Dmitry Medvedev: Mikhail Maratovich, you head a large financial-industrial group. I would like you to tell me how things are, in light of the current economic crisis, including, first and foremost, employment-related problems and how you are addressing them. Let's talk about this.

chairman of the Supervisory Board of the Alfa Group Consortium Mikhail Fridman: Thank you very much for asking what is, of course, an important question for us all.

Indeed, around 250 thousand workers are currently employed by the companies in our group. Conserving jobs is a priority for us. I want to say that despite the economic difficulties facing the entire world, and of course Russia as well, over the past few months we have had to lay off virtually no workers. In light of the fact that economic conditions are less favourable than they were, say, a year ago, we are trying to invest more in infrastructure projects.

I can cite an example. Last month TNK-BP, a company in which we hold shares, launched commercial production at a large new oil field. This is the first field of this magnitude in, I would think, the past 6 or 7 years. Uvat deposit is located in the Tyumen Region and is very far away from other towns; deep in the taiga, it is 300 km from the nearest populated area. We have established an entire, livable city, consistent with the latest technological demands in terms of quality of life, infrastructure, restaurants, cultural facilities and so on. Several thousand people will live there on a rotational basis. The field has produced its first oil. We plan to reach production levels of about 10 million tonnes in a few years. This is a large, strong field.

Therefore several thousand people will work there. This represents new jobs which the company TNK-BP has created recently.

We believe that the best approach in the current environment is to prioritise the development of infrastructure.

The situation in other companies is similar. For example, last year the turnover of X5 Retail Group reached 10 billion dollars. This is a great advance on our competitors. Already this year the company opened several dozens of new stores and all different types: hypermarkets, discount stores, supermarkets. Of course each store represents jobs and lower prices, because this increases the competition.

In principle, we believe that despite the difficulties it's time to invest in infrastructure. Rent is cheaper, real estate prices have fallen and, accordingly, this type of investment makes more economic sense for us.

Dmitry Medvedev: Plus it does indeed create new jobs, which is important for the group and in general for our country.