Now about this year's first meeting between the President and the government. Today Vladimir Putin assembled the ministers in Novo-Ogaryovo. He summarized the results of 2017 and outlined a number of important tasks for 2018. Among the most relevant topics were the allocation of emergency housing and writing off tax debts of Russians citizens. In addition, results which the transportation and tourism industries can boast about were discussed.
Dmitry Petrov will tell us more about details of today's meeting.
One of the main results of the long New Year holidays is the increase in passenger traffic. On all routes and on all types of transport. The President asks the Minister of Transportation to report on the results of this past year's work.
Vladimir Putin: "I hope that our winter holidays have already ended and we can go over some results. I looked at the information provided by the Ministry of Transportation. And I see that the volume of traffic has increased over the past years, both in aviation and railway transportation. 12% increase in aviation as I understand".
Maksim Sokolov: "Despite the difficult weather conditions, between Dec 26 and Jan 8, major Russian airports served about 4.5 million passengers. And I would like to note that according to the results of the past holidays, not a single airport stopped working, even in difficult weather conditions, small delays did occur, but we didn't have a situation like in New York, for example".
Among the regional airports, Pulkovo, Sochi, Simferopol, and Krasnodar were the leaders in growth. And last year Russian airlines transported 105 million passengers in total. Several large new terminals were immediately filled: in Rostov, Anapa, Krasnoyarsk, Perm, and Tyumen. Flights to Egypt, which many Russians are waiting for, are likely to resume in the very near future.
Maksim Sokolov: "According to our estimates, first flights from Moscow to the Egypt's Capital will begin in mid February".
Last year the railways served more than a billion passengers. And during the New Year holidays alone, they transported more than 40 million Russians.
Vladimir Putin: "Oleg Petrovich, judging by the report of the Minister of Transportation, the domestic tourist flow in Russia should also be growing".
Oleg Safonov: "According to preliminary estimates, the domestic tourist flow grew by 3% in 2017. Due to the increase of available offers, stabilization of the economic situation, and an increase in the population's purchasing power, Russians began to travel abroad more often. By preliminary estimates the outbound tourist flow in 2017 grew by almost 20%, amounting to 38 million trips, and most importantly, it almost reached the 2014 levels".
The Ministry of Finance also has new objectives.
Vladimir Putin: "Anton Germanovich, I asked you to prepare and implement laws to write-off overdue tax debts of citizens and individual entrepreneurs".
Anton Siluanov: You have assigned three tasks: first, the write-off of overdue tax debts to citizens and individual entrepreneurs. The second is to exempt 600 square meters from the land tax for a particular category of citizens, the disabled, veterans, heroes, and a number of other categories of citizens".
- And the retired by old age?
- And the retired, yes. And the third is the refusal to tax income that arose as a result of debt cancellation, whether before banks, whether for utility payments because according to the current legislation, such a write-off is accompanied by paying taxes.
This law was drafted last December and affects 20 million people. Writing off a total debt of 41 billion rubles on property taxes is being discussed. And the Ministry of Finance has written off a whole list of taxes of almost 16 billion for individual entrepreneurs. Exemption from late payments on insurance premiums will affect 700,000 businesses. And for this, they don't even need to contact the tax office.
Anton Siluanov: As for the exemption from land tax for certain categories of citizens, in the 600 sq m. framework, I want to say that this rule is effective from January 1, 2017, meaning in this year, the citizens in those categories will not need to pay tax for the previous year.
- We actually backdated it.
- Yes, backdated.
"Russian Seasons" opened last Sunday in Italy. All types of art: opera, ballet, exhibitions, cinema, Bolshoi, Mariinsky, the Hermitage, there are events in more than 40 cities.
Vladimir Putin: A reciprocal event will take place during the fall in St. Petersburg, it's not as big, but we need to prepare and help our Italian partners.
Olga Golodets: We'll make it happen.
The Ministry of Culture expects to repeat last year's success, when Russian artists attracted about 3 million viewers in Japan.
Dmitry Petrov, Irina Vinogradova, Stanislav Pletnikov, and Oleg Vasilkov. Vesti.
