Medvedev to congratulate personally Olympic medalists in Kremlin.

MOSCOW, March 15 (Itar-Tass) -- There are just 22 Russian Olympic
medalists, but they are true heroes of the Vancouver Olympics. Russian
President Dmitry Medvedev will congratulate all Russian Olympic medalists
of the Vancouver Olympics, which ended two weeks ago.
A traditional ceremony to honor the Olympic medalists will be held in
the Kremlin on Monday. But the smallest number of Olympic medalists will
attend the ceremony in the whole Soviet/Russian Olympic history. Russia's
11th place in the medal count will be the bitterest disappointment for
Russian fans and the last warning for the officials before the Sochi
Olympics-2014.
Some 179 athletes represented Russia in Vancouver. They competed for
77 sets of medals. Just each tenth of them won a medal. Some 22 Russian
athletes won 15 medals - three gold, five silver and seven bronze medals.
So, these medals are very precious for us.
The president already thanked the Vancouver medalists, stating that
they deserve "the highest praise." Medvedev has recently signed a decree
awarding the athletes with the Orders of Friendship for Olympic gold and
the First and Second Degree Medals of the Order of Merit for the
Fatherland for silver and bronze medals. The Olympic medalists will also
receive material prizes. The government will grant 100,000 euros for gold,
60,000 euros - for silver and 40,000 euros - for bronze medals. The
Olympic medalists will be also presented with cars and precious gifts.
Our Olympic champions and medalists deserved these rewards. It is
impossible to win medals at the Olympics without many years of hard
training, the leap of faith and unbendable fortitude.

.Putin to hold meeting on administrative regulation in construction.

MOSCOW, March 15 (Itar-Tass) -- Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin
will hold a meeting on improving the state regulation in the construction
industry on Monday. "This event will continue several meetings, at which
the optimization of state services in order to eliminate the excessive
regulation in supervising and authorizing functions of the authorities,"
the premier's press service told Itar-Tass.
The meeting will focus on the range of measures to improve the state
regulation in the construction industry and in construction-related land
property relations.
"The outlined plan of measures envisages the drafting of by-laws
seeking to facilitate the documentation preparing procedure, to optimize
the procedures of forming and allocating plots of land for construction
and to loosen administrative barriers to conduct a state expertise of the
design documentation and the results of engineering surveys, as well as to
receive a permit for construction," the press service said.
Alongside, it is planned to develop a system of responsibility for
violating the requirements of the technical regulations in construction,
in surveys and an expertise of the design documentation. It is planned to
introduce administrative responsibility for the ungrounded denial to issue
a permit for construction and to commission facilities, for violating the
procedure of issuing such permits, as well as for the demands to produce
the documents not specified in the Town-Planning Code of the Russian
Federation.
It is also planned to draft by-laws seeking to prevent and eliminate
abuses committed by the utilities and power grid companies in providing
water and electric power supplies for buildings.
Currently the situation in the state regulation of the construction
industry leaves much to be desired. A considerable number of amendments
have been introduced in the federal legislation for more than 15 years of
reforms. However, the legislation is enforced very slowly, therefore no
environment was shaped that will contribute to forming competitive and
efficient local markets. Numerous administrative barriers is the key
problem.
Ungrounded administrative barriers, which restrict competition and
make the construction investing sector less efficient, result in
considerable financial losses for business and a worse business climate.
According to the latest surveys, it may take 704 days to pass all
administrative authorizing procedures for implementing one construction
project in Russia. The average level of similar projects in Eastern Europe
is 264.2 days, for member-countries of the Organization for Economic
Cooperation and Development (OECD) - 157 days. Meanwhile, it is required
to pass 54 procedures in Russia, while 22.6 - in Eastern Europe and 15.1
procedures in the OECD states. The relative cost of these procedures in
Russia exceeds the average figures four times in Eastern Europe and 40
times in the OECD states.
First Deputy Prime Minister Igor Shuvalov, Deputy Prime Minister
Dmitry Kozak, Deputy Prime Minister and the chief of the government staff,
Sergei Sobyanin, Minister of Economic Development Elvira Nabiullina,
Minister of Regional Development Viktor Basargin and officials from other
agencies concerned will attend the meeting.
-0-baz


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