Health and Fitness

Annual Address to the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation.Part 2 May 26, 2004 The Kremlin, Moscow Послание Федеральному Собранию Российской Федерации 26 мая 2004 года Москва, Кремль No, and above all, we are not happy with living standards in the country. I would remind you that during its lengthy economic crisis, Russia lost almost half of its economic potential. Over the last four years we have managed to compensate for around 40 percent of this drop. But despite our efforts, we have still not caught up to where we were in 1989. Only by maintaining high growth rates of the kind we have now will Russia avoid being relegated to the backwaters of the world economy. We must grow faster than the rest of the world if we want to take the lead within todays complex rules of global competition. We must be ahead of other countries in our growth rate, in the quality of our goods and services and level of our education, science and culture. This is a question of our economic survival. It is a question of ensuring that Russia takes its deserved place in these changing international conditions. I realise that this is a far from easy task, but we are up to it and we can resolve it only through our own efforts. Whether or not we can become a society of truly free people free both economically and politically - depends only on us. Reaching our priority national goals depends only on us. These goals are well-known: doubling our gross domestic product over the next decade, reducing poverty, increasing peoples prosperity and modernising the armed forces. Again I would like to say that today, for the first time in many years, we can make forecasts not just for a few months or even a year ahead, but for a decade ahead. Our achievements over recent years now give us the base we need to finally tackle those problems that can be resolved, but only so long as we have certain economic potential, political stability and an active civil society. It is far from everyone in the world that wants to have to deal with an independent, strong and self-reliant Russia. Political, economic and information pressure have become weapons in the global competitive battle today. Our efforts to strengthen our state are sometimes deliberately interpreted as authoritarianism. In this respect I want to say that there will be no going back on the fundamental principles of our politics. Commitment to democratic values is dictated by the will of our people and by the strategic interests of Russia itself. Russias greatest competitive asset and the main source of its development is its people. Making our country strong and prosperous requires ensuring a normal life for all our people, those people who are producing quality goods and services, are enriching our national culture and building a new country. In order to open up this potential, we must create the conditions for a safe life and reduce the crime rate in the country. We must improve the nations health, prevent increase in drug use and resolve the problem of homeless children. We must bring down the mortality rate, increase peoples life expectancy and overcome the population decline. We could find ourselves already in the near future facing labour shortages and an increased social burden placed on the younger generation of the workforce. As you know, previous addresses tended to focus on the general social and economic objectives facing us. Today I think I should, and can, break with this tradition and focus on the objectives that concern practically every citizen and every Russian family. Our task now is to resolve the most pressing problems for our citizens. These are, above all, accessible and good-quality housing, education and healthcare. We now have the capacities we need to find effective solutions to these problems and I would like to look at them in more detail.

Author: niknikolay
Keywords: Ð'ладимир Путин Vladimir Putin Kremlin Moscow President Russia Президент России Послание Федеральному Собранию Российской Федерации Annual Address Federal Assembly Russian Federation
Added: December 23, 2008