Good afternoon, colleagues,
Before we address the main item on our agenda today,
public sector wages, I first want to look at a few other current
issues. Let’s start by asking Ms Golodets to tell us about the latest
new student intake in Russia’s universities.
What are the latest trends? Please, go ahead.
Colleagues,
This year, we have 324,000 budget-funded students newly
enrolled in the universities.
This is a slightly higher figure than last year.
There is a steady trend for students entering courses of study
in the natural sciences, engineering and technical fields,
medical professions, and teacher training.
We had 2,500 more students admitted to the medical professions this
year, for example, than last year.
Competition is a lot higher now to get into universities.
The national average works out at 8.8 people competing for one place.
Let me note that competition has also increased to get into engineering
and technical courses and teacher training.
We see a real upsurge in interest in some fields such as medical
biochemistry, where there are 33 people competing for each place,
and the hotel business (this is linked to the development
of domestic tourism), where 16.8 people competed for each place.
We will support training in these in-demand fields,
and this is also a signal to increase next year’s quotas
for these fields.
A lot more attention is going into preparing students
for entering university now.
It is good to see that the average grade in the national
final school exam was 65.2, which is 0.8 percent higher than last year.
In other words, we see that the average level of students is rising.
A total 6,900 winners of inter-school academic competitions
entered university this year.
These competitions provide opportunities for talented students
to demonstrate their abilities and secure for themselves budget-funded
places in universities, and we think this is an excellent practice.
The third national forum The Future –
Russia’s Intellectual Leaders is currently underway in Yaroslavl and it
shows that our system of competitions and other forms of identifying
talent continues to develop and gives an increasing number of talented
students the chance to swiftly find their road and place in life.
Also important is that our position in the global division
of labour has changed.
Our universities have moved up in global ratings
(for example, Moscow State University moved up six places in the QS
rating to 108th place).
We have another good result too in that the number of foreign students
studying in Russia is growing, including students who are
funding their own studies.
We have 86,700 students from abroad this year,
and this a stable upward trend.
This shows that there is demand in the world for the education we
offer, and the fields that prove they can meet this demand
will receive government support.
It’s not just universities.
The World Bank raised Russia’s Doing Business ranking as well, right?
Mr President, you once initiated work by the Government on the national
entrepreneurial initiative. This work is underway.
We consider 2016 to be a crucial year,
when all the roadmaps will come to fruition.
But we will not stop this work.
For all the items that were key in our work we will now
monitor their implementation.
In essence, this is our agenda that has been in place for several
years. The Agency for Strategic Initiatives launched this work.
We feel that it is very much needed.
And it’s external manifestation is the World Bank’s assessment of our
‘doing business’ parameters and what place we hold in this ranking.
The ranking was published yesterday.
Russia improved its position in this ranking,
and we are now in 51st place.
Based on the indicators you set for the Government, in 2015,
we were supposed to be among top 50 nations in this ranking.
In essence, we just missed this indicator, as we are in 51st place.
Many of the reforms we undertook were taken into account.
Russia is among the 12 nations that carried out more than four reforms.
The Russian Federation carried out five reforms during this
reporting period. And it was noted that in certain areas we made
a significant progress, including connection to power grids,
tax administration, business registration and in other
types of activity.
At the same time, even in those areas where our reforms were taken into
account and where we worked actively,
we must admit that our partner nations and competitors did better.
For example, some of our indicators declined,
such as supporting foreign trade turnover.
This has to do with two factors.
The first is a change in methodology.
Second, everyone notes that the current system of necessary fees
payable for freight registration and traffic, both export and import,
is quite cumbersome for both the recipients and the shippers of goods.
Within the framework of the entrepreneurial initiative,
we understand that we can gradually introduce the mechanism currently
stipulated by the law on Vladivostok free port to other border
crossings across the nation, and the customs agencies will be able
to manage other areas and functions,
but this will be done by a customs officer.
This would be done in part through the Federal Service for Veterinary
and Phytosanitary Surveillance and the Federal Service
for the Oversight of Consumer Protection and Welfare.
It is not an easy work, but we will ultimately need to make these
system-wide changes in order to eventually ensure better,
easier support for freight traffic.
Overall, we are working actively with the World Bank;
this work is ongoing, rather than occasional.
In fulfilling our entrepreneurial initiative roadmap and all our plans
for 2016, we hope to significantly improve these indicators.
Very well.
Mr Rogozin, we recently visited the cosmodrome that is
under construction. You mentioned another space-related issue
in passing, the GLONASS project.
What is happening there now, how do you assess the situation?
Mr President, the [satellite navigation] grouping is working
steadilyand developing consistently.
At the moment it features 28 satellites,
of which 23 are on standby alert,
one is undergoing technical maintenance,
two are being examined by the chief designer,
and two new GLONASS-K satellites are undergoing flight tests.
In December, we will carry out scheduled replacement of one
of the satellites. But on the whole,
I want to say that we have an insurance material reserve –
this includes nine satellites on earth;
in other words, if needed, we can always replace
a satellite if it breaks down.
Right now, we are working on a new generation of spacecraft.
The Istok company based in Fryazino is completing its technical
upgrade. There, we will produce atomic beam tube frequency standards
that will allow us to improve the quality of the entire
GLONASS satellite grouping’s operation.
We are working on import substitution.
And, of course, we are extending the spacecraft’s operating
life from seven years to ten.
I must mention one curious fact that even the spacecraft we launched
back in 2005 continue to work in orbit,
despite the fact that their operating life expired three years ago.
This speaks to their high quality.
The new spacecraft will also transmit enhanced navigation signals,
which will allow, following scheduled replacement of the grouping
by 2020, to reach the signal accuracy of one metre,
which is an absolutely competitive advantage over GPS.
If we look at what is happening on earth,
the GLONASS system provides 100% navigation cover of worldwide
territory. Right now, we have five stations opened beyond Russia
for the ground segment; we will be opening four more stations soon
and we are holding talks with other states.
We reported to you that we have made serious progress with China
on combining our navigation systems.
Their regional system, BeiDou, can already be combined with GLONASS.
Another interesting fact is that 2.
5 billion devices throughout the world are already receiving
the signals transmitted by GLONASS.
In other words, there is already good progress and overall,
we expect our system to cover 40% of the global market.
You approved the general designer –
Sergei Karutin, deputy director of the Central Research
Institute of Machine Building.
He undertakes the comprehensive work of further developing the system.
This July, we saw the start of operations by the GLONASS open joint
stock company, which operates projects like ERA-GLONASS.
Incidentally in the 10 months of its operation,
ERA-GLONASS processed 12,000 signals;
in other words, it is a large number of people rescued
in road accidents.
Overall, we feel that GLONASS jointly with Roscosmos and Rostec [state
corporation] can resolve three challenges they are currently facing.
The first is the commercialisation of launch services market.
The second is further developing public use of the GLONASS
civil segment.
And the third is localising the production of all receivers
in the Russian Federation, because for now,
most of them are produced outside of Russia.
So production of GLONASS units, receiver chipsets,
is among the 12 priority programmes in the microelectronics development
plan that we recently discussed at our meeting and will
implement in the near future.
Overall, I want to say – right now,
I am not talking about GLONASS’ importance for national defence –
but in the civil segment, this system is working in a truly
stable way and is in high demand.
“In high demand” – what does that mean? Can we launch it so that it
generates real profits, so that it works properly on the market? We set
the tasks of using the system’s capabilities for municipal and regional
transport as well as for other purposes. Is this working or not?
The GLONASS joint-stock company is about to start work on a project
for 12-tonne heavy-duty trucks to plan their routes
and properly tax them.
Actually, this is already the commercialisation of the system.
Moreover, if we combine – and we are now starting this –
navigation and mapping (cartographic)
services to create new maps, this is something that has an absolutely
market dimension around the world.
So we think that the operator we have created,
this joint stock company, will soon be able to successfully
commercialise Russia’s navigation service.
Very well. This issue needs constant attention.