President of the Russian Federation Vladimir Putin held a meeting with members of the Government. The event was attended by Andrey Chibis, Governor of the Murmansk Region, Chairman of the State Council Commission on the Northern Sea Route and the Arctic.
One of the issues on the agenda was the northern delivery, a system for delivering fuel, food and other vital goods to hard–to-reach settlements of the AZFR. Alexey Chekunkov, Minister for the Development of the Far East and the Arctic, made a report on the progress of the northern import. The Minister noted that the delivery system is working efficiently, all work is proceeding according to plan and on time. As of October 1, 2.7 million tons of the planned 3.4 million tons of cargo had actually been delivered: fuel and energy resources, fuel and lubricants, food and consumer goods, medicines.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has asked the Governor of the Murmansk Region to comment on the progress of the northern import campaign. In addition to the Minister's report, Andrei Chibis, as chairman of the relevant Arctic commission of the State Council, noted that the regions confirm the high level of organization of the process – there are no problematic issues, all the volumes planned for the current date have been completed. Taking into account the new federal regulation, the process is going radically better.
At the same time, taking into account the position of the governors of the regions belonging to the Russian Arctic and located along the Transarctic Transport Corridor, Andrey Chibis proposed to reconsider the conditions for granting federal monetary limits for the organization of northern shipments. These measures will make the financing system more efficient and convenient for the regions.
On behalf of the State Council Commission, Andrey Chibis made a proposal to increase the amount of federal financial support for the import of fuel and energy resources next year. Taking into account the requests of the subjects, the limit of treasury loans should increase threefold: from 10 to 30 billion rubles. At the same time, it is extremely important to allocate funds at the beginning of the year – in January, and not in the middle of summer, as is happening now.
"The sooner the financing is provided, the sooner the work on fuel purchase will be organized. And one more thing is the repayment period of the loan. Now the regions must return the funds received within a year, but taking into account the purchase, delivery of fuel to the settlement and a long period of use – up to several years, as, for example, in Yakutia, it is difficult. I ask you to consider the possibility of issuing treasury loans for two, and ideally for three years. Then it would be much easier for the subjects of the Russian Federation to do this work. But in general, we note that it is organized very rhythmically. Thank you very much for this," said Andrey Chibis.
The proposed measures will help reduce the burden on regional budgets and replace expensive commercial loans with treasury loans.
President Vladimir Putin instructed Chairman of the Government of the Russian Federation Mikhail Mishustin to pay attention to the initiatives announced by Minister for the Development of the Far East and the Arctic Alexei Chekunkov and Governor of the Murmansk Region, Chairman of the State Council Commission Andrei Chibis, and discuss them at the next meeting.
/ Ministry of Information Policy of the Murmansk Region /