OREANDA-NEWS. May 25, 2010. Vladimir Putin's opening address: We will continue working on the budget today and we will review the scenario plans for economic development for 2011-2013.

I'd like to emphasise the particular basis of this document. It is designed for a post-crisis period when we must not only fully overcome the consequences of the past year's recession, but also achieve steady development.

Needless to say, as we agreed, the budget should be based on conservative predictions, which will be carried out in any event. However, I believe that the scenario plans should reflect the government's efforts to modernise the economy and formulate a clear understanding of the prospects and factors of future growth.

In addition, it is necessary to resolve the following issues:

First, how will these measures to modernise the economy and enhance its competitiveness influence rates and the quality of national economic development? How will labour productivity grow, for example?

Second, we must finalise measures to steadily bring down inflation. The growth of prices should not surpass 5%-7%.

Third, we must make a decision on adjustment rates for the regulated tariffs imposed by the infrastructure monopolies. In other words, we must decide how much to increase the prices of rail transport, electricity and gas both for companies and individuals.

Here we must find a reasonable balance between our plans to modernise the infrastructure (these infrastructure monopolies need funds to develop) and the future possibilities for consumers of goods and services. We must decide how to distribute the burden between companies and people. We have always tried to minimise the increase in tariffs for people as much as possible. And we must look into this now. I'm primarily referring to the tariffs charged by the infrastructure monopolies and not only those of regional community services, although they also depend on these decisions to a certain extent.

As I've said, the infrastructure monopolies cannot be deprived of investments toward development. At the same time, excessive growth of tariffs should not become an obstacle for post-crisis economic development in general, nor should this be a burden on our people.

We should also look carefully at ways of lowering costs for the infrastructure monopolies, primarily by streamlining their internal expenses and structure, getting rid of unnecessary assets and property, and introducing tenders for purchases on a large scale. And we know very well that these purchases are approaching billions upon billions of roubles. They are comparable with federal spending.

And the fourth point: it is necessary to determine what resources the government will use next year.

The Ministry of Economic Development has prepared its proposals. Let's discuss all of them today.