Putin called on to minimize bureaucracy in crediting of agroindustrial complex

"The economic feasibility must be always present, of course, but the bureaucracy should be minimized", — said Putin.

For his part, the Minister said that all measures are being taken. "Believe me, Mr. President, I am from the region and I know what it is, we will minimize. And, what is the most important, one of the highlights — we save regional money. Now there is no need to subsidize these loans from regional budgets" — said Tkachev.

He explained that earlier, regions "distracted quite a large amount of money on subsidizing loans, which were given by banks". "Now there will be only the federal part, and therefore, the regions may use these funds for other needs, including agriculture," the Minister said.

He reminded that since the beginning of the new year the Ministry of agriculture has started up a new project of preferential crediting. "Credits, both investment and short-term, cannot exceed 5 percent. It is possible for them to be lower, that is, one percent, two, three, five (percent) max. And of course, it will give a major boost to creating of new projects in the agricultural sector and in processing industry – construction of new dairy farms, pig farms. It will radically change our country in terms of agriculture," the Minister added.

The President wanted to know what volume is talked about. "The volume is about 23 billion rubles. I would like to inform that "Rosselkhozbank" has already begun (this work), it was the first to be ready. Naturally, we expect other banks to take an active part in it", — said the Minister. He stressed that there was never "such cheap, long and affordable credits." "We remove all bureaucracy. This will give a major push, a major breakthrough in the field of construction, investment and, of course, creating of new projects", — said Tkachev.

According to him, the selection is done at the Bank level. "Naturally, we (Ministry of agriculture) define priorities, which industries should be supported. And of course, the projects that will be provided, projects with return means, which will be interesting, competitive, technologically advanced, will have the support in the first place", — said the Minister.

He noted that during 11 months the growth in agriculture amounted to more than 4%. "State support is unprecedented. We really have been waiting for this: preferences are almost in all areas and, as a consequence, the growth of more than 4 percent, and a record harvest in the whole history of the Russian Federation and the Soviet Union — 119 million tons. This is, of course, a great victory," — said Tkachev.

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