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About 300,000 migrants should arrive in Russia every year

The historical price of the choice between action and the lack of action is about 50 million human lives in next 40 years, Putin pointed out
Photo ITAR-TASS
Photo ITAR-TASS

MOSCOW, February 13 (Itar-Tass) —— About 300,000 migrants should arrive in Russia every year so that the country will not turn in an empty territory, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said in an article published in the Komsomolskaya Pravda newspaper on Monday.

“About 40% of world natural resources are concentrated on our territory. But the Russian population makes only two percent of the world population. The sense of the current situation is obvious. Not realizing a sweeping, long-term project of demographic development, the build-up of human potential, the development of our territories, we are taking a risk to turn in ‘an empty space’ from the global perspective, the fate of which will not be determined by ourselves,” the prime minister wrote down.

He recalled that 143 million people live in Russia now. “According to estimates of experts, in case of an inertial scenario with the current measures left in effect and the lack of new measures the Russian population will make about 107 million people by 2050. If we succeed to develop and fulfil an efficient, comprehensive population-saving strategy, the Russian population will reach 154 million people. So, the historical price of the choice between action and the lack of action is about 50 million human lives in next 40 years,” Putin pointed out.

He called the support for the families with many children as the priority measure to settle the demographic problem. “The special program to provide better housing conditions for the families with three and more children as a priority should be implemented. Additional solutions will be offered to promote the employment of women with children. These decisions will give an opportunity to combine successfully maternal duties and professional activities – a flexible working schedule, distant jobs, kindergartens and nurseries. The woman, who goes to work after the maternity leave, should receive new opportunities for additional professional education. The employer, which enrols her, should receive the assistance from the state authorities,” the prime minister stated.

Putin noted that one more solution is ‘a smart’ migration policy, which is built on clear requirements and criteria and rules out potential ethno-cultural and other risks. “We should ensure the inflow of migrants at the level of about 300,000 people annually. First of all, attracting for permanent residence in Russia our compatriots, who live in CIS and non-CIS countries, qualified foreign specialists and promising young people,” Putin remarked.

He believes that “the main condition for a person to move to live and work in Russia should be the readiness to accept our culture and our values.” “I offer to lift all restrictions from those foreign citizens, who on common grounds with Russian citizens (that is to say passing the exams and studying on the Russian language) would like to enter our vocational educational establishments. To simplify substantially the ways to get a residence permit and then Russian citizenship for graduates of our higher educational establishments, who found a job according to their speciality,” the premier indicated.

“We should build our social, economic, migration, humanitarian, cultural and educational, ecological and legislative policy over the task for the development of the human potential of Russia. This should be done not for the period of time “from elections to elections”, but for a long-term, taking it for all in all, historical perspective,” Putin said with confidence.