Economic Development and Trade Minister German Gref reported on current macroeconomic indicators.
Industry and Energy Minister Viktor Khristenko reported on the drafting of a general programme for building electricity facilities for the period through to 2020.
Mr Khristenko said that the country’s electricity production industry would make maximum use of nuclear, hydro- and coal-based electricity generation and would scale back the use of gas-based production.
Radical changes will also be made to the topography of the facilities that make up the electricity production network. This is being done in order to better link the northwest and central regions of the country with the Urals and the Far East. Plans also include the development of two new energy belts, one around Moscow and one around St Petersburg.
Mr Khristenko said the new programme would make national electricity production reliable and enable the country to meet its electricity consumption needs through its own production capacity.
Asked by Mr Putin if the plans for the sites and development of electricity production facilities link in with regional development programmes and plans to develop mining and extraction operations and create new industrial facilities, Mr Khristenko said that all of this has been taken into consideration and added that the general programme for electricity production could undergo certain adjustments in connection with the new programme for developing the Far East.
First Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev reported on an upcoming meeting of the Presidium of the Council for the Implementation of the Priority National Projects, which will examine ways to modernise the school education system in a number of the country’s regions.
First Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Ivanov reported on his visit to Yekaterinburg, including a visit to the Uralmash Company, and spoke about investment projects in the region.
Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov informed the meeting about his upcoming visits to Luxemburg, where he take part in a meeting of foreign ministers from Russia and the EU Troika, and to Norway, where he will take part in a meeting of the Russia-NATO Council.