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Speaking at the State Council meeting on July 17 Russian President Vladimir Putin said 13 percent of Russia’s population or 18 million people live below the poverty line.
He stressed the need for adjusting the regional development programmes in line with the executive orders he signed in May soon after he was sworn in as president.
“The stages and concrete deadlines for objectives must be clearly set out,” Putin said.
“The income gap is still unacceptably wide, and we still have 13 percent or approximately 18 million of our people living below the poverty line,” he said adding that this statistics should be changed as the number of people living below the poverty line “is still too high.”
“We must do everything we can to substantially raise people’s incomes,” Putin said.
First, the regional development programmes must be adjusted in line with the executive orders I signed in May. The regions and municipalities have many social problems to address. True, this number has been coming down steadily over the last years, but it is still too high. The proportion of people on low incomes is 1.5 times higher than the national average in ten regions, and in some regions is double the national average.
Source: rg.ru, kremlin.ru
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