The Legislative Duma of Tomsk Oblast
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ADDRESS BY OKSANA KOZLOVSKAYA AT THE 45TH SESSION OF THE LEGISLATIVE DUMA OF TOMSK OBLAST
Dear colleagues!
Dear guests!
The last month was full of dramatic political and economic events.
In September, Russian President spoke at the 70th Regular Session of the UN General Assembly. He called upon the global community to form a broad international anti-terrorist coalition with the participation of Islamic countries. Then, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad addressed the Russian leaders asking for help and then Russia started its air campaign against ISIS.
In October, the Normandy Four summit took place where a solution was found to reach and sustain armistice in Ukraine.
All these topics are on the top of the global agenda. They define in many ways the political and economic climate on the planet. It is very important that among the opposing views on Russian initiatives more and more often statements are heard which emphasize Russia’s positive contribution to resolving new global challenges such as, for example, the dramatic turn of the global economy.
For the first time since 2008, global trade has shrunk by more than 8% and the global GDP by almost 3.5%. Nobody has been able so far to propose a solution to quickly stabilize the situation.
These assumptions are of critical importance for all countries in the world when building a long-term development model. Russia is no exception.
What needs to be changed and how? What reforms are needed and how much time they will take? Seeking answers to these questions was the starting point at the Russian Government’s session to discuss the Development Strategy of Russia 2030. For the first time in the national history the national development strategy will be based on both today’s realities and future technological advances.
The social and economic development priorities of the federal budget for 2016 are being discussed with those assumptions in mind.”
The main conclusion from all discussions is this:
• Russia’s strategic goal remains unchanged – to become a country with the highest level of well-being
• The domestic economy has on the whole adapted to today’s realities and is ready to grow
• The key goal now is to leverage this growth and not let the standards of living drop
The Prime Minister believes that it is possible only through private investments in the economy to stimulate effective demand. Therefore, the budget will set the ‘investment agenda’ for the economy.
Dmitry Medvedev described the budget as a ‘realistic stretch’.
The budget is based on three principles:
• Long-term stability and sustainability of the budgetary system
• Delivering social commitments and helping the real economy to adapt to the changes
• Technological modernization, development of infrastructure and import substitution
The price of oil in the 2016 budget is 50 dollars per barrel. The dollar exchange rate is 63 rubles per dollar.
The Ministry of Economic Development believes that the emerging stabilization may not last long because of the long-term low oil price forecast and the sanctions. We should be working off these assumptions.
Dear colleagues!
Today we, too, start discussing the main financial document of Tomsk Oblast – the law on the 2016-2018 budget. On behalf of the Duma I would like to thank the Governor and his team for very accurately following the existing procedure for the development and submittal of the draft budget.
Despite changing conditions in the global and domestic markets there are a number of positive trends in the regional economy:
• Faster growth of manufacturing facilities and agriculture
• Small but robust growth in real income per capita and people’s bank accounts in commercial banks (exceeded 100 billion rubles in total)
• Decreasing numbers of loss-making businesses and recorded unemployment
Such are the trends used as a basis for the Oblast budget for the next three years. It is important that the budget has preserved its program-based structure. It includes 23 Oblast-run programs with the total amount of funding in 2016 above 78 billion rubles. Private investments account for 20% of all spending. Our goal is to increase the share of private investments and to leverage them to bring the maximum return to the investors and maximum efficiency for the budget.
The three-year budget also provides increased spending on almost all major items compared to the previous year:
• Education and healthcare – over 24bn rubles
• Social security and support for families with children – almost 8bn rubles
• Out of every 100 rubles in the consolidated budget (without indexation but with the reserve) almost 40 rubles are spent on salaries for doctors, nursery and school teachers, veterinary doctors, and other workers of state-funded organizations
• Financial aid to municipal entities accounts for 40% (more than 20bn rubles) of the Oblast budget spending
• Public utilities, transport and social infrastructure – 2.5bn rubles
• Almost 17% of all spending will be used to support the real economy, including 1.6bn rubles to develop agricultural production
It is very important that with all internal and external risks the Oblast budget preserves social stability and stimulates the investment attractiveness of the economy.
We have already discussed some of the budget issues with the Governor but there are a lot of open questions still. They will be resolved by the conciliation committee which will be established today.
