Translated material
Money doesn't buy happiness
Dmitry Medvedev calls for modernizing the financial model of education and healthcare
Traditional meetings of the Presidium of the Council on Priority National Projects and Demographic Policy, chaired by First Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, are now inevitably viewed through the prism of his future presidency. Yesterday Mr Medvedev held his first such meeting as a presidential candidate . It was distinguished by a large-scale view of social problems and the progress of implementation of national projects - as if it was no longer the performer (the first deputy prime minister) who was “looking”, but the customer (the future head of state).Two years after the start of national projects, it is clear that changes have begun in education and medicine, which have been underfunded for many years. Agriculture, having felt the attention of the authorities, including purely material ones, also began to please more than to upset. And housing construction is picking up speed, trying to keep up with growing demand.
However, it is too early to celebrate victory, to put it mildly. Yesterday, during the regular meeting of the council's presidium, it became obvious that the implementation of national projects has run into problems that cannot be solved with budgetary injections alone. Although they haven’t forgotten about money either: in 2008, 300 billion rubles are expected to be allocated for priorities. in addition to the 400 billion rubles already disbursed over the past years . Now solutions are required that will eliminate the legislative and regulatory restrictions that hinder the implementation of national projects. “It is necessary to move to full-fledged, integrated solutions and actively use the accumulated experience to modernize the relevant industries,” said Dmitry Medvedev.
The future of the national project in the field of education, for example, as Mr. Medvedev said, lies in the introduction of a new economic model for the functioning of secondary and higher schools. In this regard, he instructed the ministers to work out proposals for a universal transition “to normative per capita financing in education, for the introduction of single-channel financing of medical care through the compulsory health insurance system.” “But for this,” the First Deputy Prime Minister emphasized, “it is necessary to modernize the relevant systems and develop unified approaches to stimulating the work of workers.” “We are on the verge of a full modernization of the financial organization of the economic model in education and healthcare. This is our goal, and this is what we will do in the future,” he said.
In agriculture, one of the main problems is low wages. Moreover, it persists despite high production growth rates and a tenfold increase in investment in this industry during the period of implementation of national projects. “In two years, 360 billion rubles have come into the industry, the growth rate in agriculture is twice as high as in the economy as a whole,” said Dmitry Medvedev. And although the rate of wage growth, as head of the Ministry of Agriculture Alexey Gordeev admitted, is one of the highest in the economy, in absolute terms its size is 6 thousand rubles. -- still two times below average.
However, Minister Gordeev is lobbying not only for improving the financial well-being of the villagers. Yesterday he proposed increasing the authorized capital of Rosselkhozbank by 8 billion rubles every year in order to prevent a shortage of credit resources in rural areas. According to him, lending volumes will exceed 1.4 trillion rubles by 2012. Mr. Gordeev also considers it possible to attract funds from an investment fund and the Development Bank to implement large projects in the food industry.
As for innovations in the implementation of the national project “Affordable Housing,” Dmitry Medvedev insists on intensifying work to reduce administrative barriers, demonopolize the construction industry, and stimulate the development of roads and utility infrastructure. He instructed the Ministry of Regional Development to work out mechanisms that would help use land plots as collateral for the construction of infrastructure and housing. “We must create mechanisms, legal and organizational, that will allow us to use existing land, not privatized, but municipal, to raise money for housing construction,” said the First Deputy Prime Minister. At the same time, he noted that appropriate changes to the legislation have already been made, but the problem remains unresolved. “There is a regulatory framework, but the institute itself is not working properly,” Mr. Medvedev complained.
During the meeting, it became clear (the head of the Ministry of Regional Development, Dmitry Kozak, already spoke about this) that in subsidized regions it is planned to increase the share of the federal budget in co-financing housing subsidies for young families from 10 to 35%, and also to establish 100% compensation for the interest rate on construction loans communal infrastructure.
Due to the increase in demand for housing, caused, among other things, by the development of mortgages (this year the volume of mortgage loans will be 400 billion rubles compared to 260 billion rubles in the past), Mr. Kozak proposed increasing the amount of direct financing for construction. According to him, out of 62 billion rubles. Direct financing of the national project for 2006-2007 was only 11.2 billion rubles. (18%) were aimed at increasing the volume of housing construction. “In the context of a housing shortage and rising prices, this ratio must be changed and more funds allocated to increase the volume of housing construction,” the minister is confident.
Without such measures, the government believes, it will not be possible to fulfill the task set by the president to build 140 million square meters. m of housing per year. (This year approximately 60 million sq. m. will be built). “I would like to ask you not to forget that we have the guidelines that the president spoke about: at least one square meter of housing per person per year,” said Mr. Medvedev, outlining an arithmetically simple but so far impossible task.