NOVO-OGARYOVO, January 26. /TASS/. Russian government plans to endorse an anti-crisis plan on Tuesday, President Vladimir Putin said on Monday.
“I know that tomorrow the prime minister plans to issue a resolution endorsing this plan and would like to ask for a meeting with lawmakers of the Russian State Duma (lower parliament house) to speak with them about all parameters of this plan in a bid to achieve maximum consolidation of the executive and legislative branches at the level of decision-making,” Putin said at a government meeting dedicated to economic problems.
The president suggested this plan be discussed in detail at today’s meeting. “In the past several days, the government has been working hard to finalize the anti-crisis plan. Since it is entitled as ‘anti-crisis,’ we understand that it it is necessary to ensure social stability first of all,” the president noted.
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The president called on the government to look at optimization of budgetary spending as it did in 2008-2009. “It is necessary to think about optimizing budgetary spending, like we did in 2008-2009, in order to increase financing of certain sectors and revise some parameters in a long-term perspective, i.e. to look at priorities,” Putin said.
The president noted that social stability could only be achieved when macroeconomic stability was preserved. “It [social stability] can only be achieved if acceptable parameters are preserved in the economy, first of all, it is linked with the budget, inflation, foreign debt, reserves, and so on,” Putin said. “This is all we have been rightly proud of in the recent years and it is called macroeconomic stability.” The president said it is necessary to ensure economic growth on this basis. He noted that a major factor of economic growth is attracting private investments.
Participants in the meeting include First Deputy Prime Minister Igor Shuvalov, Deputy Prime Ministers Olga Golodets and Arkady Dvorkovich, Finance Minister Anton Siluanov, Minister of Economic Development Alexey Ulyukayev, chief of the Kremlin administration Sergey Ivanov, presidential adviser Andrey Belousov, governor of the Russian Central Bank Elvira Nabiullina and head of the Russian Audit Chamber Tatiana Golikova.