Dmitry Medvedev met with heads of regions at Sochi-2018 Russian Investment Forum

UFA, 16 February 2018. /Bashinform News Agency/. The Chairman of the Government of the Russian Federation Dmitry Medvedev had a meeting with the heads of the regions at the Sochi-2018 Russian Investment Forum, which was also attended by the Head of Bashkortostan Rustem Khamitov.

The topics of discussion were prospects for intergovernmental fiscal relations development, spatial development strategy and infrastructure constraints removal.

The Prime Minister noted in his speech that the revenues of the regional budgets were growing: the number of surplus budgets was increasing, and the deficit ones was decreasing. Nevertheless, the debt load still remains at a high level. Budget loans were created to solve this problem. Over the past three years, their total volume has exceeded 1 trillion rubles.

It is supposed to achieve balanced and stable regional budgets through the most equitable, transparent and predictable distribution of federal transfers. To this end, last year all agreements between the federal center and the regions were coordinated in advance, as well as subsidies for three years were distributed.

In addition, the Government continues to stimulate the development of the regions’ economic potential.

“Since last year, the regions that show the highest growth rates receive grants - total in the amount of 20 billion rubles. Since this year, an important new statute started operating: corporate income gains tax will be reimbursed to the regional budgets. For this 36 (almost 37) billion rubles are allocated in the federal budget for the current year,” said Dmitry Medvedev.

According to the Chairman of the Government, the improvement of intergovernmental relations should correlate with the country's spatial development strategy until 2025, which was discussed at a plenary session of the forum.