First meeting of the Government Commission on Import Substitution

Our country has been awarded the right to host the WorldSkills-2019 competition. Kazan beat out such worthy contenders as Paris and the Belgian city of Charleroi. Tatarstan knows how to host events such as this, and I have no doubt that everything will be done very well.

Today, we are holding the first meeting of the Government Commission on import substitution. The commission's task is to create appropriate conditions for Russian producers in those industries and sectors of the economy that remain highly dependent on imports. These include the machine tool industry and most sub-sectors of the engineering industry, radio-electronics, the light industry, pharmaceuticals and the medical industry.

Our goal is not to substitute imported goods at any cost, especially for mediocre goods made in Russia. This is economically inexpedient and simply impossible. We are talking about helping Russian companies produce world-class, modern, high-quality and high-demand goods, which would be able to compete not only on our domestic market, but also internationally.