Russian President Vladimir Putin outlined his vision of the economy of the future and announced new mortgage relief measures in his speech to the plenary session of the Eastern Economic Forum (EEF) in Vladivostok this week.
According to the TASS news agency, Putin stressed that the economy of the future would be “built around people”, emphasising the importance of social infrastructure as well as industrial development.
“This logic is not only unfair, it does not work in the modern economy,” Putin said, referring to the practice of building industrial facilities without social amenities.
The president announced a retroactive increase in mortgage subsidies for large families in Far Eastern regions with low birth rates, effective July 1. The payment will be raised to 1 million roubles ($10,900 at current exchange rates).
“I propose that we solve this problem. Let’s keep the interest rate on mortgages in the Far East and the Arctic at 2 per cent a year,” Putin said.
On the other hand, Putin described the Far East as “a very important factor in strengthening Russia’s position in the world” and the country’s “flagship” in the new global economic reality: “The Far Eastern regions provide direct access to these growing and promising markets and allow us to overcome the barriers that some Western elites are trying to impose on the world”.
“The main business links, trade routes and the entire vector of development are increasingly oriented towards the East and the global South,” the Russian leader said.
Putin also called for consideration to be given to the construction of a nuclear power plant in the Far East and stressed the need to fully double track and electrify the Baikal-Amur main line railway.
Putin also underlined Russia’s readiness to carry out large-scale transport projects, saying: “We can build quickly, comprehensively and with high quality”.
In addition, Putin stated that his country was not pursuing a policy of ‘de-dollarisation’ and that Russia was not the party that abandoned dollar-denominated payments, saying: “We are not pursuing a policy of de-dollarisation. After all, we did not reject dollar-denominated agreements, they rejected the agreements and we had to look for other possibilities,” Putin said.
Putin added that the currency reflects a country’s economic power, saying that the more partners a country has, the more its currency will be in demand.
“After the Second World War, the US took advantage of this situation and made the dollar the world currency. Now the situation is changing,” Putin said, noting that the countries of the global South now account for more than 50 per cent of world GDP.
The Russian leader stressed the importance of ensuring resource sovereignty for the country’s uninterrupted supply of affordable fuel and raw materials. He pointed to the potential of the Far East to produce titanium, lithium, niobium, rare earth metals and other resources “necessary for the economy of the future”.
Putin also called for the speeding up of legislation needed to launch international priority development zones in the Far East.
Putin also spoke about the joint Russian-Chinese project to develop Bolshoy Ussuriysky Island in the Khabarovsk region, which is due to start in 2025.
The president underlined Russia’s commitment to modern technologies by announcing plans to launch a civilian drone project in the Far East.
