The Legislative Duma of Tomsk Oblast
|
|
June 25, 2016. 43rd Session of the Duma of the 5th Convocation
At the beginning of the 43rd session Duma Speaker Oksana Kozlovskaya addressed the deputies with her traditional speech.
“Experts say that the current downward trends of economically active population will soon reduce the global GDP twice. Many countries which have been driving global growth in the last 30 years will face a higher dependency ratio in the coming decades. Russia is no exception of this trend. The risks can be managed through changing the society’s attitudes towards working mothers and youngsters, increasing the retirement age and helping ‘young pensioners’ to stay employed.
Some numbers for reference. The population of Russia at the beginning of 2015 was above 146 million people. For the second year running the population of the country has been naturally increasing (more than 30,000 people). Life expectancy has grown to 71 years.
At the same time, Moscow’s Higher School of Economics has warned of a worrying situation in the labor market – the post-war generation is displaced by the meager generation of the 90s, which exponentially increases the dependency ratio – more than 700 elderly people and children per 1,000 working people. The working population is the foundation for the government’s social and economic policy and a key driver for the development of economy and investments.”
Summary of the Speaker’s speech.
All social commitments fulfilled
Deputy Governor of Tomsk Oblast, head of the Tomsk Oblast Department of Finance Aleksander Fedenev presented a bill on the performance of the 2014 budget of Tomsk Oblast. He reported that the Oblast budget revenues in 2014 totaled 48.6bn rubles (92.9% vs plan and 113.4% vs 2013 actual). Expenditures in 2014 totaled 53.9bn rubles (95.3% vs plan and 110.4% vs 2013 actual). Deficit in 2014 totaled 5.4bn rubles. As of January 1, 2015 the national debt of Tomsk Oblast was 19.8bn rubles (53.8% vs total revenues net of non-repayable receipts). 1.2bn rubles was spent on servicing the debt.
The main spending items of the Oblast budget were as usual social and culture (63.9%); national economy and environment (14.2%), transfers to the budgets of other regions and municipal entities (9.3%), public utilities (3.7%). In 2014, all social commitments were fulfilled.
Cultivate tolerance since childhood
The deputies made amendments to the law On government support for cross-regional, regional and local young people’s and children’s social associations in Tomsk Oblast . The amendments are bringing the regional law in line with the federal legislation which requires that regions maintain a register of young people’s and children’s social associations. The list of areas eligible for government support was extended to include cross-national and cross-confessional cooperation among children and the youth.
Chairman of the Committee for Legislation, State Structure and Safety of the Legislative Duma of Tomsk Oblast Vladimir Kravchenko asked what amounts would be allocated in 2015 for social associations of children and young people. Presenter – head of the Tomsk Oblast Department of Youth Policy, Physical Training and Sports Maksim Maksimov – answered that in 2014 the region budgeted 10m rubles and in 2015 it was 4.2m rubles.
