7 Ежегодная большая пресс-конференция Part 1 В.Путин (V.Putin)
7 Annual Big Press Conference Part 1February 14,2008 President of Russia V.PutinThe Kremlin,MoscowRESIDENT OF RUSSIA VLADIMIR PUTIN: Good afternoon, friends and colleagues,It is my pleasure to welcome you to this event that has now become a tradition. I would like to begin as usual by summing up the results for 2007.I will have to give a few figures. I will be brief, but I will repeat some of the figures I have already quoted, and I am happy to do so because 2007 was a successful year. It is enough to say that, as you already know now, our economy grew by 8.1 percent, and this is one of our best results over these last years. Calculated on a purchasing parity basis, our economy has grown to a size that now puts us ahead of G8 countries such as Italy and France. Russias economy is now the seventh biggest in the world (according to data from international experts).Real incomes have increased by 10.4 percent and wages are up by 16.2 percent. Real pensions have increased by 3.8 percent. This is higher than inflation but pension increases are still lagging behind wage growth. We have therefore decided to increase the insurance part of pensions by 12 percent as from February 1 of this year, and this part of the pension will undergo a further increase of 7.5 percent on April 1, while the basic part of the pension will be increased by 15 percent as from August 1 of this year. I stress that we will keep very close watch at the same time on developments in the inflation situation. The Government will unquestionably keep its eye on the situation and adjust pensions in accordance with inflation. Our demographic project is going ahead successfully. I am particularly pleased to see the results in this area because a lot of people doubted that our proposed demographic measures would be effective in any way. Some people thought this was an impossible situation to deal with. But the birth rate dynamic in 2007 was at its best for the last 25 years and more children were born than in the last 15 years. What is especially important and especially pleasing to see is that we achieved one of the goals we set, namely to increase the number of families having a second or third child. The number of such families rose by 10 percent (from 33 percent to around 42 percent). As we promised, we are indexing all benefits in this area, including the maternity capital.As you will recall, the maternity capital was initially set at 250,000 roubles. This year it will be 271,000 roubles and we are planning for a sum of around 307,000 roubles in 2010 depending on the inflation situation. I would like to assure our citizens that the state will continue to ensure strict fulfilment of all of its obligations in this area.One of the biggest and most serious problems we face is that of poverty. In 2000, more than 30 percent of our population was living below the poverty line, but I am pleased to be able to say that this figure had come down to 17.7 percent in 2005, 15.3 percent in 2006, and was lower than 14 percent in 2007. The number of unemployed people has also dropped and I think we now have around 4.3 million unemployed.Industrial production shows a good growth dynamic. Industrial output growth did not exceed 4 percent in 2005 and 2006, but last year it went up to 6.3 percent. The processing sectors have shown particularly good results and some sectors are growing very fast indeed, not just the service sector, but also areas such as construction, which was up by around 20 percent, and housing construction, which posted an even higher increase. Really, we are now seeing something of a construction boom underway in the country.Investment in basic capital was higher last year than at any time in the last eight years and came to 21.1 percent. We did not see such a figure even back in 2000, when the economy grew by 10 percent. Net capital inflow to the Russian Federation totalled $82.3 billion last year two times higher than the figure for 2006.Our country is consolidating its financial situation. Our foreign currency reserves increased by $170 billion and we are now close to reserves of half a trillion dollars, $478.6 billion to be more precise, according to the latest data. There has been a slight decrease due to changes in the dollars exchange rate. The Stabilisation Fund now comes to 3.84 trillion roubles. Russian banks have ridden out the liquidity crisis without much trouble. The stock market index increased by 20 percent, which is slightly less than last year, but last year saw a record result. In general, the Russian stock market is growing at record rates 20 percent is a decent figure.
Author: niknikolay
Keywords: Annual Big Press Conference Part Ежегодная большая пресс-конференция Владимир Путин Vladimir Putin Kremlin Moscow седьмая пресса президент Россия President Russia журналисты встреча вопросы Conferences Meetings with Statements Journalists meeting questions ежегодная Российской Федерации Путина российских иностранных журналистов
Added: November 12, 2008