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President of Russia Dmitry Medvedev: I am currently having a long series of meetings with representatives of Russia’s large businesses, so this is the context in which I view my meeting with you.

Of course, we are not living through an easy time. You are the head of one of Russia’s largest financial-industrial groups. I would like you to tell me honestly about how things stand for you, what challenges you are able to resolve, including in upholding the measures that are being applied by the government, and which measures, in your opinion, may not be sufficient or may need adjustments.

Based on the outcomes of this meeting, we will perhaps think about what else may be undertaken, because the well-being of an enormous number of our citizens depends on the effectiveness of your actions in running your company, where tens or even hundreds of thousands of people are employed.

President of The Interros Company Vladimir Potanin: Currently, the main priority in our work, as you justly noted, is to maintain stability in the companies that are included in our financial-industrial group, especially the ones that are major employers in their respective areas, so called town-forming enterprises.

Of course, the situation right now is not easy, and the enormous drop in demand for products of nearly all the companies in our country is forcing us to economise and to reduce expenses. But our approach relies on the fact that certain kinds of unplanned events mainly occur in the administrative divisions, in Moscow – in other words, in the company headquarters, where this does not create an excessive social burden. As for town-forming enterprises, where the actual production takes place, we are only making pre-planned redundancies, related to modernisation, which cause an inevitable decrease in our need for workers. And overall, this involves a single-digit percentage of reductions – two, three, or four percent, the same figures we would have had anyway. We are trying not to allow the crisis to influence these processes.

In regions where the divisions of Norilsk Nickel operate – the Krasnoyarsk Region and Murmansk Region – those companies are currently under stable but intense work conditions. Nonetheless, they are trying to cooperate with regional authorities in reinforcing the local budgets, so that the regions do not find themselves in a difficult position.

To summarize, in my view, for the moment, we are able to hold a responsible position which allows us to maintain a level of profitability, permitting us to keep up production, and to avoid creating social problems. That is our main position.

We view the measures that are generally taken by the Government and the President as positive and adequate. I feel that the priorities which are currently suggested by the anti-crisis program correspond to our understanding of what should be done.

The one issue is that if this difficult period lasts longer than a year, then perhaps we should speak in advance about how these measures will work in 2010–2011. Because, even despite the fact that we are expecting improvements in this situation over the course of this year, the situation will not improve quickly, and it probably would not be right to abandon all support measures immediately. That is why we would be happy to discuss what should happen in 2010–2011.

Dmitry Medvedev: I think that what you are saying is right. It is important to discuss these sorts of measures for the future, because indeed, it is still unclear how quickly the situation will stabilise, and even less so, how long restoration will take after the crisis.

We should not overemphasize what we have done, but we also cannot lose anything of what we have done. I feel that in the future, even the anti-crisis programme that has currently been accepted based on the outcomes of resolutions that were developed by the Government through my decree, at the State Duma level, along with the project on adjustments to the State Budget – this programme should be oriented not only toward the current period, but also, if possible, toward the future, in as much as it is currently possible to analyse that future. Because many patterns in the development of this crisis are not entirely clear, as is often said nowadays.

In the nearest future, we will be discussing international measures for influencing the crisis with our other colleagues in London, but we must also think about creating a mechanism that is, unfortunately, intended to last more than one year. And I think that is the right thing to do.