Page 10 - RusRPTJune18

Another way of boosting the work force is to bring in more women; all children under the age of three must by 2021 have the opportunity to go to the kindergarten freeing their mothers for work.
And labour will be used more efficiently as a system of retraining adults to give them more relevant skills will be established. This one is a Kudrin idea who believes that investing into Russia’s human capital is the shortest route to improving productivity. His think tank came up with a long list of recommendations including: a system of patronage for preschool children, early identification of talents, modernization of the vocational education system, teacher training and doubling the number of foreigners teaching in Russian universities. The task is now to bring Russia into the top ten in the world in terms of the quality of general education.
Investing into infrastructure: making workers work harder, longer and better is an economic multiplier. Investing into infrastructure has the same effect. Putin identified a long list of infrastructure projects that include: improving regional roads and airports, expanding the West - East and North – South transport corridors.
At the same time the government is going to encourage more homeownership by reducing the mortgage rate for people with an average income to less than 8%. The housing commissioning has already been told to increase the amount of new residential space to 120mn square meters per year from under 80mn built a year in in 2017.
These initiates and others will be formalized in 12 national projects, which should be formalized by October 1, 2018.
The new cabinet is said to be “Kudrin’s cabinet without Kudrin” and is made of competent technocrats who have proven track records at their tasks.
As part of the new programme the cabinet has already been reshuffled to an extent.
Who’s out
Igor Shuvalov: he was removed from his job as first deputy prime minister in a widely anticipated move. Marred by corruption allegations, Shuvalov has been a government fixer who is close to bug business.
Dmitry Rogozin: he was removed from overseeing Russia’s defence and space industries, which have not been run well.
Arkady Dvorkovich: he was removed as deputy prime minister overseeing industry. A western educated liberal, Dvorkovich was marred by close connections to big business.
Sergei Prikhodko: he was removed as a leading foreign policy adviser to Putin following being embroiled in a US election-fixing scandal that also involved oligarch Oleg Deripaska and a Belarusian hooker.
Who’s who
Ten vice-premiers and twenty-one ministers have been appointed to Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev new government following the election of president Vladimir Putin in March.
First Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance Anton SiluaNovember The highly competent Siluanov got a promotion and will responsible for financial and economic issues. He will supervise not only the Ministry of Finance, but also the Ministry of Economic Development. In the
10 RUSSIA Country Report June 2018 www.intellinews.com