OREANDA-NEWS. Opening remarks by Dmitry Medvedev:  Good afternoon! We are meeting today to discuss exports – how we can support high-tech exports. I won’t explain why we should do this. Everybody  understands why. We discussed these issues in a specific context at the Government meeting on March 7 when looking into the state programme Promoting Foreign Economic Activity. Improving Russia’s export capacity by increasing the share of high-tech and research-intensive products is our national strategy. The Government’s task is to provide for 60%-70% growth of non-energy exports within five years.

Creating favourable conditions for exporters is global practice. And this is not our strong point, we have to admit – in any case, if we compare our capabilities with those of some of our neighbours who are actively working on this. This also relates to access to long-term and easy loans, insurance support, and guaranteed state support for export loans. I repeat, we are considerably below foreign countries in terms of the scale of decisions we make and the quality of services offered in this country. Our goal is to provide state financial support for at least 13%-15% of Russian exports of non-energy products by 2018. I recall that this support amounted to 0.5% in 2011.