Russian Care and Social Development Minister Mikhail Zurabov (right) and First Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev intend to provide a stable workforce by 2015.
Photo: Dmitry Azarov
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The Government Will Defeat Death
First Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev stated yesterday at the World Social Security Forum in Moscow that the demographic problem in Russia is limiting its economic growth. By 2010, he said, government measures to slow the pace of the natural loss of population will improve the situation by 2010, and the population will stabilize at 142-143 million. Experts say that some improvement is expected this year, but it cannot yet be called a trend.
Medvedev told the forum audience that, if conditions do not change, the population of Russia could shrink by 27 million, to 115 million, by 2025. That would lead (and in some regions is already leading) to a shortage of labor, an increasing tax burden as the population ages and a decrease in competitiveness.
Minister of Health and Social Development Mikhail Zurabov credited the Motherhood Capital program, which pays 250,000 rubles for the birth of a second child, and the Health national project for improved demographic indicators. He noted that, last year, the death rate was 7 percent lower than the year before and, in the first seven months of this year, the death rate had dropped by 6.5 percent compared with the same period of last year, while the birth rate was up 6 percent. Experts caution, however, that those indicators fluctuate, and it is to soon to speak of a tendency.
www.kommersant.com
All the Article in Russian as of Sep. 11, 2007
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