President Vladimir Putin: Good afternoon, dear colleagues,
We met as practically the same group in February and we discussed then practically the same issues that we are to examine today. In February, our meeting resulted in the drafting of a number of presidential instructions. I would like to remind you of two of the decisions that were taken at the time.
The first was as follows: “Decide on the mechanisms and timeframe for liquidating cross subsidies”. In fact, there are three decisions I would like to mention. The second was: “Draw up a programme to attract investment to the electricity sector”. The third decision was: “In order to ensure reliable electricity supplies to the Russian Federation’s regions, draw up primary measures to prevent electricity power shortages in the energy systems, above all in the cities of Moscow and St Petersburg and the regions of Western Siberia”. There was also an instruction on ensuring reliable gas supplies to the electricity sector.
At that meeting we spoke about how insufficient attention to developing the energy sector could become a real brake on economic growth. According to the Industry and Energy Ministry, RAO Unified Energy Systems (UES) is unable to fulfil requests from different economic actors for a total of 50 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity. This is demand that is not being met. If this demand were being met, we could have additional GDP growth of approximately five percent a year. This indicates that our fears of an underdeveloped energy sector holding back the pace of our economic growth are now being confirmed.
I know that the Government is set to examine this question very soon. I think that it will be the Government that draws up the final decision. Today we need to hold a preliminary discussion and I would like to hear from everyone present, I would like to hear your proposals and your ideas on what we can do now to radically change the situation in this sector.
It sounds a bit strange for a country that is one of the world’s energy leaders to say that we do not have sufficient capacity to ensure our own country’s development. It seems clear to me that we have to correct our work. We should probably ask the Government to examine once again the development programmes of Gazprom and RAO UES, re-examine the investment programmes, look at how the Government is helping our energy companies and what the energy companies themselves could have done in addition.
Overall then I would like to hear your proposals, proposals that should form the foundation for a development programme for the country’s energy sector.