Official website of the President of Russia

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President of Russia Vladimir Putin: Mr Dmitriev, how is the Fund’s work progressing in the current environment?

CEO of the Russian Direct Investment Fund Kirill Dmitriev: Mr President, thank you for your continued support of the RDIF. Since our inception, we have invested in 100 major projects across various sectors, including infrastructure, industry, and technology. The total value of our investments has exceeded 2.3 trillion rubles.

Vladimir Putin: For what period?

Kirill Dmitriev: This represents the Fund’s activities. Over the past two years, we have invested 250 billion rubles alongside our partners, achieving an attraction ratio of 1 to 5. In other words, for every ruble we invested, our partners contributed five.

Notably, one trillion of these funds were allocated to projects from the ground up, involving the creation of new production facilities and enterprises.

We have also brought in 36 billion euros of foreign capital into the Russian economy. A large portion of these investments is automatic, with 90 percent coming from friendly countries that continue to collaborate with us.

Today, we are also highlighting that these investments not only contribute to the growth of Russia’s economy, infrastructure, and technology, but are also highly profitable for the state. We have increased the state funds already invested in the Fund by nearly six times (5.7 times). As a result, investments are flowing into infrastructure, industry, and technology while simultaneously generating significant returns for the state.

We also work with Russian co-investors, and together we have invested in 25 projects totalling 240 billion rubles since 2022. These projects include Atom, our first electric car, and we are also planning to finalise another 16 projects with Russian partners in the near future, worth a total of 270 billion rubles.

You have also instructed us to focus on import substitution. We are establishing an industrial fund in the oil and gas industry jointly with the largest oil and gas companies in order to invest in oil and gas technologies together. This will be an entire ecosystem where we will not only invest in enterprises, but oil and gas companies will also give orders to small and medium-sized technology enterprises. We also plan to extend the model of such industrial funds to the telecommunications industry and a number of others.

In addition, many significant infrastructural projects are already showing good results with your support. You have inaugurated Bagration Prospekt, which improved transport accessibility for 1.5 million people in Moscow, and ten million vehicles have already passed there.

Our first railway bridge between Russia and China is now playing a very important role, and trade there has already increased sevenfold over the first eight months. It has become a very important route connecting us with China.

We have opened small hydroelectric power plants in Karelia, which have quickly improved the situation in the region. This is the first project of the BRICS Bank in Russia. We will also invest in developing domestic gas supply together with Gazprom, and together with a subsidiary we will build autonomous gas supply stations and promote this in every possible way in Russia.

We are also actively investing in infrastructure together with our Asian partners. Together, we are building grain terminals, which will supply our grain to Chinese markets, and we are also investing in a terminal for transshipment of liquefied petroleum gases, which will also be in the Far East to help our cargo go to China.

We continue to invest together with foreign partners. As you know, we have attracted more than six billion euros in 70 investment projects from Middle Eastern countries, with one million Russians working in these companies. Together with Chinese partners, we have attracted 6.8 billion euros in various companies, and 600,000 people work there.

In conclusion, I would like to briefly speak about our investments in artificial intelligence, healthcare, and BRICS initiatives.

As for artificial intelligence, we have attracted 150 billion rubles from our foreign partners specifically for artificial intelligence projects, and we are actively interacting with our leading universities and institutes. We invest not only in infrastructure such as data centres for artificial intelligence, but also in companies such as Motorika, which produces prostheses that use artificial intelligence. We also help our artificial intelligence companies enter the Middle East markets. For example, we helped a facial recognition company enter the Saudi Arabian market, and we are also bringing a leading telemedicine company to the markets of Asia and the Middle East.

As for healthcare, our successful fight against the coronavirus has made it possible to create a partner network in various countries, and we, accordingly, will continue to promote the Gamaleya Institute’s vaccines to the Chinese market, for example, and bring the leading Chinese drugs to the Russian market. Jointly with the Cubans, we will attract their anti-cancer drugs to Russia. With an Indian company, we are building, first, a network to produce items for haemodialysis, and, second, a Russia-based Indian pharmaceutical cluster.

Vladimir Putin: Do you remember we were talking with you and I asked you to create conditions where the developers of these drugs that are so much needed in our country and elsewhere should not feel disadvantaged when profits from selling these drugs are distributed?

Kirill Dmitriev: Yes, I do.

Vladimir Putin: I asked you to create an arrangement where the developers would also receive certain funds, both for personal consumption and for developing relevant areas of their activity. Have you managed to do that?

Kirill Dmitriev: Yes, I have, no doubt about that. Taking the Sputnik vaccine as an example, the leading groups at the Gamaleya Institute have received considerable funds personally. Besides, a certain amount of money from the sale of each vaccine went to the Gamaleya Institute for their R&D and their development, respectively. This is one of the first examples, where many researchers have received very considerable sums indeed, because their contribution to creating the national vaccine was highly important. I am referring to rather large sums allocated to both the chief developers and the entire 40-man-strong team involved in the vaccine-making effort.

Vladimir Putin: The Institute itself should have received certain funds for development.

Kirill Dmitriev: The Institute received considerable funds per each vaccine. Plus, as you may know, the RDIF has remitted the 22 billion rubles it made on this to the federal budget. Therefore, there are no vaccine profits left in the RDIF’s possession. We have turned everything over to the budget. The Gamaleya Institute has also received significant money for development.

Vladimir Putin: Good. Thank you.

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