The main event of the EEF was undoubtedly the plenary session attended by Russian President Vladimir Putin. Photo: kremlin.ru.
Throughout the week, the attention of the country and the world was focused on the events taking place in Vladivostok. The 9th Eastern Economic Forum brought together businessmen, officials, economists and heads of state who constitute the main economic force here in the East. The main event of the EEF was undoubtedly the plenary session in which Russian President Vladimir Putin took part.
He stressed that he still considers the development of the Far East a national priority for the entire 21st century.
“Indeed, today the Far East, without exaggeration, has become the most important factor in strengthening Russia’s position in the world, our flagship in the new global economic reality. And the future of our entire country largely depends on how the Far East develops,” Russian President Vladimir Putin said at the plenary session.
TRANSPORT AND LOGISTICS
Revealing plans for the future, the Head of State announced the start of projects on Bolshoy Ussuriysky Island. Active work on them will begin next year. These include the creation of large logistics complexes, checkpoints and expansion of the road network. In addition, the President stressed the importance of the development of the Eastern railway section. This year, the third stage of its modernization began. In the future, the construction of continuous double tracks throughout the BAM and the electrification of railways.
Commenting on Vladimir Putin’s speech, Acting Governor of the Khabarovsk Territory Dmitry Demeshin stressed the role of electrification in improving transport accessibility in populated areas.
“We will build the Kuznetsovsky tunnel and a bridge over the Amur River in the Komsomolsk-on-Amur region. In addition, the entire length of the railway will be electrified. This will give us the opportunity to launch electric trains and connect our settlements with electric trains. We also discussed in detail the fact that we will launch electric trains after the completion of the reconstruction of the BAM with the head of Russian Railways Oleg Belozerov on the sidelines of the EEF,” said Acting Governor of the Khabarovsk Territory Dmitry Demeshin.
Vladimir Putin also stressed the need to pay attention to the development of air traffic in the Far East.
“We need to build our own aircraft, which are reliable, high-quality and in the quantities we need. In this regard, I ask you to speed up the development of the passenger version of the Baikal light multipurpose aircraft. It is necessary to start mass production in the near future,” the Head of State warned.
Dmitry Demeshin, for his part, confirmed that all the resources to fulfil the request are available in the Khabarovsk Territory.
“We have agreed with Rostec Corporation, Technodinamika Holding and Ural Civil Aviation Plant that they will come to our Komsomol site in the priority development area and resume development work. I am convinced that in the next two years we will show the country and the whole world our new Khabarovsk Baikal aircraft,” the acting governor said.
MASTER PLANS AND SOCIAL SCOPE
As the President of Russia noted during the plenary session, the Khabarovsk Territory, along with three other regions, has become a leader in the implementation of urban master plans. He called for allocating another 100 billion rubles for these purposes in the period from 2025 to 2030.
“Khabarovsk region will participate in competitive procedures for the use of this money. We need to improve the space of our urban agglomerations. Last week I raised the issue that it is necessary to develop, approve general plans and finance Vanino and Sovetskaya Gavan,” said Dmitry Demeshin.
The social sphere did not go unnoticed by the Head of State either. For example, he confirmed that the 2% rate on prime mortgages in the Far East will remain unchanged until 2030.
“This is a serious message for us to support young families. Of course, we need to resolve the issues of additional regional support for young families giving birth to their third and subsequent children,” said the head of the Khabarovsk Territory.
In addition, the Far Eastern double payment coefficient for the Zemstvo Teacher, Zemstvo Doctor and Zemstvo Paramedic programmes will remain unchanged. And on 1 January 2025 the “Zemstvo Cultural Worker” programme will start.
Many of the topics discussed at the plenary session were the result of reports that Dmitry Demeshin presented to the President during the last meetings. One of them is the formation of a long-term program for the development of energy capacity in the Far East.
“We also have great potential for the development of solar and wind power generation, which can cover remote settlements. Here at the WEF, I met with investors who are willing and ready to enter these remote settlements. And I am confident that in the near future we will show concrete results. There are no outskirts in the Khabarovsk region,” Dmitry Demeshin stressed.
It should be noted that most of the successful projects and programmes in the Far East aimed at the economic and social development of the regions were made possible thanks to the direct involvement of the Plenipotentiary Representative of the President of Russia in the Far Eastern Federal District Yuri Trutnev in promoting them. Vladimir Putin noted at the plenary session that the rate of investment growth in the Far East is higher than the Russian average. Since 2013, more than 3.5 thousand industrial, educational, infrastructure and technological projects have been launched here, and more than 140 thousand jobs have been created. The dynamics of industrial production since 2013 has exceeded the all-Russian rate by 25%.
