NOVO-OGARYOVO — Russian President Vladimir Putin has supported a merger of two state-run plants Izhmash and Izhmekh in the Republic of Udmurtia within the framework of the Russian Technologies State Corporation.
The merged enterprise will appear under the common brand — Kalashnikov.
“As for the merger, of course, this is possible,” Putin told a meeting with Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin, who put forward this idea.
NOVO-OGAREVO — President Vladimir Putin will instruct the Energy Ministry and Gazprom to consider improving the regulatory framework for the development of the lower-tier segment of the domestic gas market.
This issue was raised by NOVATEK CEO Leonid Mikhelson at a meeting with Putin on Monday, November 19.
“The lower-tier segment of our gas market still operates by resolutions that were issued 20 years ago and that do not reflect the present state of affairs… if small enterprises or small and medium-sized business want to get gas, they have to spends a year and a half or up to three years for that,” Mikhelson said.
NOVO-OGAREVO — Russian Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin has informed President Vladimir Putin about the preliminary results of the placement of the country’s defence order this year.
“To date, 94.3 percent on the defence order with our main customer – the Defence Ministry has already been placed, and the issue is closed concerning the other customers,” Rogozin said. At the same time, according to him, the main problems remain the same: “Changes in the state defence order during the placement, i.e., the very meaning of these tasks is changed too often.” “As for financial indicators, everything looks much better than last year, but problems remain, especially in the system planning of the defence order,” the RF deputy prime minister said.
NOVO-OGAREVO — President Vladimir Putin asked Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin and economic ministers to finalise the general pricing principles for defence orders.
“The general price-setting principles need to be settled. This has been the subject of much discussion and there are many problems here. You have already had enough trouble with this yourself, but we still have yet to see a common set of principles,” Putin said at a meeting with Rogozin on Monday, November 19.
GORKI — Russian Prime Minister Dmitry described the RF government’s work concerning issuing bylaws on the decisions of the RF Constitutional Court as “a disgrace.” Medvedev made this statement at a meeting with the deputy prime ministers.
“More than 200 bylaws that are required in accordance with the legislation in effect have not been developed at all. In 58 cases the decisions made by the Constitutional Court have not been implemented — it's a disgrace!” the RF prime minister said. Medvedev instructed the chief of the government staff to submit proposals for the solution of the problem.
MOSCOW — Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said person should be able to get a digital signature together with his passport.
“This would be correct and useful, in principle,” he said at a meeting with tax service employees on Monday, November 19.
Medvedev said he had signed a resolution allowing personal registration cards that will include information about a person’s tax payments, insurance premiums, and other personal data. “It would be good if the digital signature were also added to that,” he said.
MOSCOW — Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev called for using electronic document management technologies in the government.
“Documents should be managed electronically and regulatory acts should eventually be issued in electronic form too,” Medvedev said at a meeting with tax service employees on Monday, November 19.
“A part of documents, a very small part, should probably be duplicated on paper, but these are exclusive things such as laws, presidential decrees or government resolutions, for history, so to speak,” he said.
Documents for regions should not be issued on paper at all, the prime minister added.
MOSCOW — On November 21, the Russian state authorities will enact a scandalous law, under which Russian non-governmental organizations, which are funded from abroad, should be registered as foreign agents. The law has splashed up an avalanche of criticism from human rights activists and the opposition. The largest human rights organizations stated that they will boycott the law. However, most Russians, support the law.
The law, which raised fierce protests from the human rights activists and the civil society, toughens the requirements to accountability and introduces the control over the incomes and expenditures of the non-governmental organizations, which are engaged in political activities and are receiving the financial aid from abroad. The Russian authorities will run a register of non-governmental organizations, which perform the functions of a foreign agent.
MOSCOW — The Russian government has submitted a draft law on drug tests for schoolchildren to the State Duma.
The document determines the powers of the federal and regional authorities in preventing non-medical use of narcotics and psychotropic substances.
The draft law says that early detection of non-medical use of narcotics and psychotropic substances includes social-psychological testing of pupils in educational institutions and preventive medical checkups for them.
The document also sets forth the competencies of educational institutions for ensuring early detection of non-medical use of narcotics and psychotropic substances among pupils by way of social-psychological tests.
MOSCOW — Secretaries of the Security Councils of the Collective Security Treaty Organisation (CSTO) will discuss the effects of the withdrawal of ISAF troops from Afghanistan, the CSTO press service reported on Monday.
This topic will be central during the session of the CSTO Parliamentary Assembly due to take place in St Petersburg on November 22, the press service said.
MOSCOW — Russian MPs suggested postponing the entry into force of the new education law for six months.
The government’s draft education law passed the first reading in the Duma on October 17 and is scheduled for a second reading on December 11.
“As for when the law should take effect, it is January 1, 2013 [as stated in the draft law]. But it is clear that this date needs to be changed,” Alexander Degtyarev (United Russia), the head of the State Duma Education Committee, said at a meeting of the presidium of the Council of Russian Legislators on Monday, November 19.
KRASNODAR — Russia’s largest deep-water port with a turnover of about 100 million tonnes of cargoes a year will be built in the southern Krasnodar Territory.
“It will be a port of new philosophy – a deep-water one. It will allow our consignors to enter new markets. This will make our economy more competitive,” Deputy Minister of Transport of Russia by Viktor Olersky said at a meeting with the regional governor.
He said attention will also be paid to the development of the port Kavkaz that operates in the Temryuk District because existing transport hubs in Tuapse and Novorossiisk are severely overloaded.
MOSCOW — The total amount of tax revenues in the consolidated budget made up 9.2 trillion roubles (USD1 = RUB 31.67) in the first ten months of the year, Chairman of the Federal Tax Service (FTS) Mikhail Mishustin said during a Monday meeting of Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev with the FTS staffers.
Mishustin forecasts that this year’s tax revenues will exceed ten trillion roubles.
In 2011, the federal service collected about ten trillion roubles, which exceeded the indicators of 2010 by 25 percent, Medvedev reaffirmed.
MOSCOW — The LNG carrier Ob River with a freight of liquefied natural gas (LNG) sailed along the Northern Sea Route for the first time in the history of the Arctic navigation.
The safety of navigation was ensured by the nuclear-propelled icebreakers Vaigach and 50 Let Pobedy. The LNG carrier freighted by Gazprom Marketing and Trading has about 135,000 cubic metres of liquefied natural gas on board.
UNITED NATIONS — Russia will keep up its naval presence in the Gulf of Aden as part of the international effort to fight sea piracy and calls for targeted sanctions against pirates.
HELSINK — Russia and Finland will develop cooperation in the fight against tax havens and tax evasion. Anton Siluanov and Jutta Urpilainen, the finance ministers of the two countries, agreed on this at the meeting in Helsinki on Monday. The Russian minister is on a working visit in Finland.
BISHKEK — Russia’s grant worth 25 million U.S. dollars will be spent for the support of the Kyrgyzstani budget, Republican Finance Minister Olga Lavrova said, addressing the national parliament on Monday.
“It is yet unknown whether the Russian aid will be transferred to the budget of this year or to the budget of next year [2013],” she said. In Lavrova’s words, the situation will become clear after certain formalities inside the republic.
“Presumably, the funds will be spent for the development of social sector,” the minister said, adding that now the relevant governmental structures collect data on the targeted use of the Russian grant.
BISHKEK — The inflow of money from Russia to Kyrgyzstan went up by almost 20 percent this year, the National Bank of Kyrgyzstan said in a statement made public on Monday.
“In the first nine months of the year, 1.4 billion U.S. dollars were transferred from Russia to the republic, as compared to 1.16 billion U.S. dollars over the same period of 2011,” the bank underlined in the document.
In the mean time, the inflow of money from Kazakhstan to the republic decreased by about 13 percent In January-September, as compared to the same months of the preceding year, the National Bank’s experts stressed in the statement.
KIEV — Ukraine decreased natural gas consumption by 9.8 percent in the first ten months of the year, as compared to the same period of 2011, the Ukrainian Ministry of Energy and Coal Industry said on Monday, adding that the country’s gas consumption stood at 41.16 billion cubic metres over the period under review.
In October 2012, Ukraine’s gas consumption went down by 22.5 percent as against last year’s October to amount to 3.72 billion cubic metres, the ministry wrote.
In 2012, Ukraine will cut the consumption of the natural gas by 15 percent as compared to 2011, and by another 12 percent in 2013, Ukraine’s Minister of Energy and Coal Industry Yuri Boiko said.
In January-October, the Naftogaz Ukrainy company decreased the import of Russia’s gas by 28.2 percent or by 10.9 billion cubic metres.