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A number of meetings were held in Samara by Minister of Transport of the Russian Federation Maksim Sokolov, Presidential Plenipotentiary Envoy to the Privolzhsky Federal District Mikhail Babich and the Governor Nikolay Merkushkin

18.01.2013

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Today a number of meetings with participation of Minister of Transport of the Russian Federation Maksim Sokolov, Presidential Plenipotentiary Envoy to the Privolzhsky Federal District Mikhail Babich and the Governor of the Samara region Nikolay Merkushkin were held in Samara.

The first meeting with participation of Plenipotentiary Envoy was committed to the issue of the Samara region budget balance. Ministers of the regional Government also took part in the meeting.

Mikhail Babich pointed that the meeting is held on the eve of presentation of results of federal monitoring for the main indicators of the social and economic development to the President of Russia.

“We have decided to monitor the overall fulfillment of budgetary obligations undertaken in May with the purpose of execution of President’s Orders . Now we are familiar with the budget capacities that may be additionally conscripted for execution of obligations planned for 2013-2015. We realize that there is a budget deficit that should be balanced within the inter-budget relations”, - stressed Plenipotentiary Envoy. “We will study in details each direction of President’s orders execution and special focus will be on the increase in salaries of public sector workers”.

Mikhail Babich pointed that the possibilities for setting the budgets for constituent entities of the Russian Federation for the nearest future, including the issues on cost optimization, will be forecasted based on the example of situation assessment in the Samara region: “The Samara region is one of the most prominent regions in terms of this issue. The large area and economy, and a big percentage of the budget is allocated to the fulfillment of social obligations. Now we are studying situation so that to give the President report on that”

Nikolay Merkushkin emphasized that the work on budget spending optimization and allocation of freed funds to the execution of President’s orders has already been started in the region :”We started to work in this direction in previous year. I said in my message that during the half of a year we managed to save about 3 billion rubles while carrying out public contracts. Those funds were allocated to increase the salaries of pre-school educational institution workers and other workers of public sector. We are going to reduce our expenses in other directions and to use these funds to increase the salaries and to solve other problems defined in President’s orders. This includes problems of Housing and Utility sector, road building, and construction of sports facilities. These directions are relevant for the Samara region”.

Within the next meeting with participation of Minister of Transport of the Russian Federation Maksim Sokolov, Presidential Plenipotentiary Envoy to the Privolzhsky Federal District Mikhail Babich and the Governor of the Samara region Nikolay Merkushkin Management of GC “Renova” made a presentation of the project on reconstruction of Kurumoch airport as well as presented plans for the development of airports in Nizhny Novgorod and Rostov-on-Don.

“Among the airports which development we are going to discuss today, two are located in Privolzhsky Federal Disctrict”, - noticed Mikhail Babich in his opening speech: “One is a hub airport of Privolzhsky Federal District and it will have key value for implementation of the project on regional transportation development that is approved by the Resolution of the Government of the Russian Federation, dated January 16. Airport in Nizhny Novgorod is also of high importance for us. Both cities pretend to host matches of FIFA World Cup; that is why it is really important today to discuss in details the stages of airports development and to understand when the projects will be implemented, what problems we have and if it is necessary to provide our administrative support or not”.

The Governor of the Samara region Nikolay Merkushkin several times drew the attention to the need for regional air transportation development and for creation of a transport hub on a base of Kurumoch airport. “The region shall become a center of cheap flights executed by aircraft of economy class (including AN-140) exactly by the World Cup”, - stressed the head of the region in his message made at the end of previous year: “The Government of the region, including the Samara Region Development Corporation, shall pay careful attention to the process of implementation of the project on Kurumoch airport modernization”.

After that Maksim Sokolov and Mikhail Babich held a meeting on implementation of pilot project on development of regional air transportation in Privolzhsky Federal District. Representatives of airline companies and representatives of the airports of Privolzhsky Federal District took part in the event.

Upon initiative of Mikhail Babich a draft program for aviation development in the district was prepared. After preliminary discussions with the heads of the regions the project was presented and got an approval on the meeting with Chairman of the Government of the Russian Federation Dmitry Medvedev in August of last year.

On January 16 the Government of the Russian Federation approved the Rules for provision subsidies from the federal budget to airline companies and regional budgets of PFD for carrying out passenger transportation with the aircraft of economy class. “Development of this program took us almost nine months”, - marked Mikhail Babich: “We reported our suggestions concerning the project to Chairman of the RF Government ; following his instructions the government authorities started development of the project and, on January 16, Resolution of the Government on approval of the pilot version of this program under the symbolic number “one” was signed.

Maksim Sokolov remembered that the first suggestion to develop that project was expressed in Samara during the meeting on development of transport infrastructure of PFD. “Today here we have almost all participants of the process who will hold the threads of a project in their hands; the project is pilot but nevertheless it is very important for us due to the fact that development of regional transportation is one of the top-priorities of the Government of the Russian Federation”, - stressed the Minister of Transport.

Implementation of the project will start on April 1, this year. 37 direct flights and 20 transfer flights organized by connection of direct flights in airports of Samara, Kazan and Ufa will be organized between 15 large cities (all regional centers of PFD and Nizhnekamsk).

Comfortable routes will appear thanks to the project implementation and the ticket prices will be twice cheaper than the existing ones for all categories of passengers due to 50% subsidy from the regional budget.

Mikhail Babich pointed that this project presumes a number of innovations: “Fundamental difference of this program is that we removed all age restrictions for the categories of passengers who will be carried by the regional companies. By doing so we create conditions under which not only socially and economically disadvantaged people will be able to use the preferences but also economically active population of the country.

In his Message to the deputies of the Samara regional Duma and to the citizens of the region Nikolay Merkushkin said: “In coming year it is necessary to accelerate creation and to start first flights of united inter-regional airline company for execution of passenger transportation within PFD, with attraction of funds allocated to transportation”.

18.01.2013
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