Chairman of the Government of the Russian Federation Mikhail Mishustin presented annual report on the activities of the Government of the Russian Federation for 2020 to the State Duma.
For the first time in modern history of Russia, the construction industry experienced a crisis in the economy without losses, the Prime Minister said. “Over the past year, we have significantly simplified construction procedures. By the end of the spring session, we plan to reduce them by about a third,” stated Mishustin.
According to the prime minister, the construction industry was able to weather the pandemic without loss thanks to a breakthrough in regulation. In addition, the development of mortgage programs has had a positive impact. With the help of mortgages with state support, over 470 thousand apartments were purchased in new buildings.
Mikhail Mishustin noted: “The program ends in the middle of this year. On the instructions of the President, the government is considering the volume and format of its continuation”.
Results of the industry in 2020 were commented on by the Minister of Construction, Housing and Utilities of the Russian Federation Irek Fayzullin. The volume of work in the “Construction” type of activity amounted to 9.5 trillion rubles, which is 370 billion rubles more than in 2019. In total, in 2020, over 326 thousand permits were issued for the commissioning of residential and non-residential buildings. In 2020, over 70 thousand expert opinions were issued, which is almost twice as much as in 2019.
The head of the Ministry of Construction of Russia emphasized that the implemented measures, including the development of mortgage programs, reduction of mandatory requirements in construction and many others, allow maintenance of high rates in housing construction in 2021. The positive impact on the housing construction industry of the mortgage loan subsidy program is evidenced by the data of the monthly monitoring of the urban development potential of the territories involved in housing construction. According to the regions, this potential has steadily increased by 2-5% per month since the third quarter of 2020 and today is close to 200 million m2 of housing. Since the beginning of 2021, almost 1,400 permits have already been issued for the construction of residential real estate with an area of around 11.1 million m2.
“Today our efforts are focused on creating new high-quality housing that meets modern requirements for comfort and safety. The main priority here is the development and renewal of the city-wide infrastructure, that is, the creation of engineering, transport and social facilities. As the Prime Minister noted, mechanisms of infrastructure loans and bonds will be used to implement such projects. Today we are actively working on the parameters and legislation for launching these mechanisms, 5 pilot regions have already been identified for infrastructure bonds, these are Tula, Tyumen, Sakhalin, Chelyabinsk and Lipetsk regions,” stated Irek Fayzullin.
“In order to reduce the construction time without reducing the safety and quality of construction, the Ministry of Construction of Russia is working to reduce the investment and construction cycle of facilities and introduce innovative construction technologies into the industry. In 2020, around 3,000 requirements were excluded from the List of National Standards and Codes of Practice that are Mandatory. In the near future, another 3800 norms will become voluntary. Thus, while maintaining the norms in the evidence base of the Technical Regulations, it becomes possible to make flexible, alternative decisions in the design and implementation of new, innovative technologies and materials in the industry. This further increases the responsibility of customers, designers and expert bodies. In addition, by the end of the year, it is planned to achieve a reduction in the number of redundant administrative procedures that increase the investment and construction cycle of project implementation by 30%,” stressed the Minister of Construction, Housing and Utilities of the Russian Federation.
