Putin visited new Khrabrovo Airport terminal.

Vladimir Putin visited Khrabrovo Airport, where he inspected the reconstruction of the passenger terminal and visited the arrivals area.

Vladimir Putin visited Khrabrovo airport in Kaliningrad.

Khrabrovo International Airport has regular flights to Moscow, St. Petersburg, Krasnodar, Cherepovets, Murmansk, Anapa, Kaluga, Arkhangelsk, Minsk, Grodno, Gomel, Brest, Vitebsk, Tashkent, Warsaw, Antalya, and Barcelona.

Putin - Developing Northwest transportation infrastructure.

Vladimir Putin held a meeting in Kaliningrad on the opportunities for developing transportation infrastructure in Northwest Russia. The heads of relevant ministries and agencies and a number of regional heads from the Northwest Federal District took part.

Meeting on developing Northwest Russia’s transportation infrastructure.

Meeting with Russian Railways CEO Oleg Belozerov.

Vladimir Putin had a working meeting with Russian Railways CEO Oleg Belozerov.

The discussion focused on the company’s performance in 2016 and plans for 2017, including the growth of cargo turnover and productivity and the implementation of key investment projects.

Vladimir Putin and Oleg Belozerov in Kremlin.

President of Russia Vladimir Putin:

Mr. Belozerov, we have touched on this before, but we need to talk in greater detail about the company’s performance last year and this year’s nascent trends. I am sure you can provide figures on your cargo turnover and achievements in the passenger segment.

Russian Railways CEO Oleg Belozerov:

Mr. President, I would like to begin by expressing gratitude for the attention you pay to the work of Russian Railways. The past year was complicated and unusual but very interesting. Cargo turnover increased modestly last year, but we reported a record increase in the freight rate, which reached 2.3 trillion tonne-kilometres. This is the first time we can report this result in Russia’s modern history.

We have also overcome the negative trend in passenger transportation. The number of passengers we carry in intercity and commuter transportation has increased. I would like to thank you for last year’s unprecedented decision on passenger transportation, that is, a zero VAT rate. This decision will allow us to modernise our rolling stock.

This has also created conditions for formulating a long-term rate policy through 2030. In other words, we now have a sustainable passenger transportation model. Thank you very much.

Our labour efficiency, which is a very important indicator, has grown by 5.4 percent, which is above our target of 5 percent.

We updated our performance figures in January and can report a net profit of 6.5 billion rubles. Thanks to reducing the prime cost of transportation, we have paid 430 billion rubles in taxes, including 161 billion to regional budgets, and saved over 10 billion rubles on acquisitions.

Vladimir Putin:

An increase in labour efficiency is a very good achievement. Well done.

Oleg Belozerov:

Thank you.

As far as the investment programme is concerned, all key projects are proceeding according to schedule. This includes modernisation of the Baikal-Amur Mainline and the Trans-Siberian Railway, access roads to the ports in the Azov Sea and the Black Sea, and the construction of the Zhuravka-Chertkovo-Bataisk railway.

As of January 1, 2017, we performed over 233 billion rubles worth of works at the Baikal-Amur Mainline and the Trans-Siberian Railway. This year we will cross the halfway line of the project.

However, the main result of the previous year is that we again managed to save over 8 billion rubles on special assessment of our design solutions. I reported the same result for 2015. This means we have already saved over 16 billion rubles.

Regarding access roads to the ports of the Azov and Black Seas, work continues as scheduled. As of January 1, 2017, we completed a work scope worth 35 billion rubles. Thus, the major part of the project will be finished by 2019.

Now for the Moscow-Adler railway bypassing Ukraine. As of the beginning of the year, we performed more than 25 billion rubles worth of work. We plan to finish the project this autumn, which is one year ahead of schedule.

January was quite an unusual month. The cargo amounts have increased by over 6.5 percent. However, most importantly, the freight rate has grown by over 11 percent.

Our exports have increased by over 12 percent. Transit activity is recovering quite intensively at over 30 percent, while large-tonnage container transportation has increased by over 33 percent.

The project we presented together, the Moscow Central Circle railway, continues to set records. Right now, we carry 333,000 passengers daily. We agreed with the Moscow City Government to improve our performance by increasing frequency and using the latest technologies. This should give another boost to the system.

Vladimir Putin:

We spoke earlier about concessions for certain categories of passengers, including schoolchildren. Do you have plans with respect to their holiday breaks?

Oleg Belozerov:

Yes, we do. We decided to provide a 50 percent discount on private compartment tickets during the spring break. Earlier, the discount was only valid for open compartments. We hope this will create better conditions for family travel. This is an innovation we are launching this year.

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Link: http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/53994

PHOTO:

President Putin and Russian Railways CEO Oleg Belozerov.

Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Russian Railways CEO Oleg Belozerov.

Meeting with Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin.

Vladimir Putin and Dmitry Rogozin discussed matters concerning the organisation of the Aviation Board’s work.

The Aviation Board was established by a Government resolution of December 21, 2016, to enhance coordination of activities between the federal and regional executive authorities and aviation industry and air transport organisations in developing, producing, operating, and marketing Russian-made civil aviation equipment.

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President of Russia Vladimir Putin:

Mr. Rogozin, it was essentially at your initiative that the Aviation Board was established, using the Maritime Board as an example. Let us discuss the organisation of its work.

Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin:

Mr. President, you gave the Government instructions and we have acted on them. On December 21, the Government issued an official resolution on establishing the Aviation Board. As I briefed you earlier, we needed to synchronise and harmonise supply and demand, which is production of aviation equipment, as well as its operation and purchasing, primarily on the domestic market. It is very clear that unless we win back the domestic market, we cannot even start working on our export goals in this sector.

We are currently finalising the Board’s membership. It will include representatives of all the leading design bureaus working in civil aircraft manufacturing, research organisations, the Central Aerohydrodynamic Institute, of course, and state customers – the potential buyers of these products, and commercial companies. Later, those involved in post-sale servicing of our civil aviation equipment will also be represented. This has always been our weak point. We can sell goods, but we are not so good at maintaining them afterwards.

Our new mainline aircraft, the MS-21, will take to the skies this spring. I already briefed you on this. The work is proceeding fully according to plan. I visited the Central Aerohydrodynamic Institute at the end of December and saw how the aircraft’s stress tests were coming along. In Irkutsk, they are also preparing for the maiden flight.

By this time, we will have drafted a plan for synchronising the production of the new craft: the MS-21, the Il-114, a short-haul passenger plane seating 64 passengers, and the Il-96–400, an extended long-haul aircraft. We will synchronise their production with plans to take out of operation old and foreign aircraft.

We will offer various incentives to companies buying Russian aircraft, including advantageous routes and special economic incentives, including leasing possibilities. We are on schedule and we think we will be ready to brief you on the first results in early spring.

Vladimir Putin:

The plan concerning routes is a good idea, a good bonus.

Dmitry Rogozin:

Of course, all the more so as now we have come up against the most complicated problem – that of long-haul aircraft. Airbus and Boeing aircraft account for close to 80 percent of our market today. Some of the liberals here say that if it is a good plane, people will buy it everywhere, but this is not the case. Try selling an Airbus on the American market, or a Boeing somewhere in Europe. In other words, there are always overt and tacit protectionist measures in place.

In order to protect our domestic market (the routes could include those crossing our vast country, flights to the Far East, and also tourist routes to Russian citizens’ preferred tourist destinations), we will allocate these routes only to companies that will operate Russian-made aircraft on them.

Vladimir Putin:

Good.

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Link: http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/53762

Putin.BLOG - PHOTO:

Vladimir Putin and Dmitry Rogozin meeting at Kremlin.

Vladimir Putin meeting with Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin.