By Bernama,
Moscow : The personnel reshuffling in the Russian government has not affected the schedule of calling cabinet meetings, Russian news agency, Itar-Tass, reported.
Premier Vladimir Putin holds the first meeting of the reshuffled cabinet on Thursday – according to the long-standing tradition of the White House.
Ministers of the new government will meet on Thursday not for the first time. The new premier gathered precisely this composition of the cabinet at the meeting hall on Monday, May 12, when he told colleagues and reporters about the personnel reshuffling in the government. The cabinet (including the premier) now numbers 25 people (previously 22).
The structure of the federal executive power was enlarged by two ministries, but several services and agencies were disbanded. Besides, the prime minister now has seven deputies, each of whom is in charge of several spheres and sections of the government’s social and economic policy.
First vice-premiers are Igor Shuvalov (to sit to the right of the premier at the meeting table), responsible for foreign economic activities and the tariff policy, as well as ex-premier Viktor Zubkov (to sit to the left of Putin at the table), responsible, above all, for the agro-industrial complex and the timber industry.
There are three items on the agenda of the Thursday meeting; their discussion promises to be not an easy one. The main topic was already announced by the premier. “We have to explore scenario conditions and the main parameters of forecasts for Russia’s social and economic development till 2011 at the next cabinet meeting,” Putin said on Monday. The report will be made by Minister for Economic Development Elvira Nabiullina.
Interior Minister Rashid Nurgaliev will submit to the colleagues a draft of a new law on “state genome registration in Russia”.
Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin will speak on the ratification of an Agreement between the Russian Federation and the Laotian Republic on settling debts of that country on earlier credits.
All the ministers who will speak on Thursday are no newcomers.
However, their reports will be discussed for the first time in the present composition of the cabinet with the participation of interested vice-premiers and under the chair of Putin.
The premier told ministers “the government will have to work under a very intensive and strenuous schedule, but the scale of tasks sets this pace, tasks facing the country and us”.