Rustam Minnikhanov: Today the construction complex is one of drivers of the economic growth of the country

On 8 April the Deputy Chairman of the Russian Government Marat Khusnullin, the Minister of Construction and Housing Utilities Sector of the country Irek Fayzullin, the Rais (Head) of Tatarstan Rustam Minnikhanov , who is also the Chairman of the Commission under the Russian State Council in the project “Infrastructure for life” and heads of regions of the country took part  in a joint meeting of the Commission  and the collegium of the Russian Ministry of Construction and Housing Utilities Sector  held in Moscow.

In his welcoming speech Marat Khusnullin said that the Russian President has set a number of strategic objectives for the Government and the regions in terms of housing construction, housing and communal services, and public amenities, which must be achieved by 2030 and continue until 2036. Their implementation is aimed at raising life quality of residents, comprehensive renovation of settlements and creating the necessary infrastructure including that in the reunited regions.

The 2025 has become the first year of implementation of the national project “Infrastructure for Life” and due to the systematic work of the governors, the Government, and all branches of the Government, we were able to achieve all planned indicators, the Deputy Prime Minister of the country emphasized.

He stated that the contribution of the construction branch into the GNP has amounted nearly to 22 trillion rubles, with 150m square meters of real estate built and 685m square meter of housing put into operation since 2019. Speaking about housing market, Marat Khusnullin emphasized that first and foremost we are talking about the possibility of improving the housing conditions of families and said that the mortgage is the key measure of support. He informed that more than 3.8m families improved their living conditions due to the social mortgage programmes which have been working since 2018.

Marat Khusnullin reminded that, in accordance with the errand from the Russian President, it is necessary to improve the quality of the living environment by 30% in 2,160 key settlements, where more than 70% of the country's population lives by 2030 and informed that the Ministry of Construction of the country together with the Territories Development Fund has developed a comprehensive development plan for all over the country.

He especially mentioned issues of modernization of the housing utilities sector as the most sensitive sphere and noted the necessity to continue work in raising work productivity and the branch digitalization.

Marat Khusnullin particularly noted the extensive work being carried out by the State Council Commission on "Infrastructure for Life," headed by the Rais of Tatarstan Rustam Minnikhanov.

Irek Fayzullin listed a number of Russian entities which demonstrated the highest indicators in putting the housing into operation and mentioned Tatarstan as one of them.

In his turn Rustam Minnikhanov on behalf of Russian regions thanked the Government of the country and the team of the Construction Ministry for well-coordinated joint work in construction and Housing Utilities Sector and said: “Today the construction complex is one of the drivers of the economic growth of the country. Issues of housing, public infrastructure and spatial development are the constant focus of the leadership of the country. It is important to continue the discussion of current issues in the industry and ensure strict implementation of decisions taken by corresponding authorities.”

Rustam Minnikhanov stated that housing affordability is one of priority tasks as in the context of declining birth rates, housing policy should work not only as a measure to support the construction market, but also as an instrument of family policy. ”We think it is important to continue reformatting a family mortgage. I would like to remind that the Chairman of the Government gave an errand to consider the possibility of differentiating the rate for family mortgages based on the number of children. In addition, we received feedback from 22 regions that are also asking for increased family mortgage limits,” he emphasized and mentioned that today housing prices in many regions have become equal to those in the capitalones, and the limit remains the same - 6 million rubles.

“It is crucial to consider increasing family mortgage limits for regions with high housing costs similar to those in the capital regions,” the Rais of the republic said.

On top of that the cost of construction of housing in apartment buildings has increased more than threefold for the last five years, he informed and stated the need to reduce costs of developers and speed up the launch of projects.

As one of crucial elements for improving housing conditions is the social infrastructure, Rustam Minnikhanov proposed to synchronize the volume of construction of social facilities with housing commissioning indicators

In his speech the Rais of the republic also read out his proposals for raising the quality of the housing utilities services, communal infrastructure modernization and supporting induvial houses construction and informed that in 2025 Tatarstan launched a project to digitalize existing utility networks. “Today it is 145 thousand kilometers network, 30 thousand of which were digitalized last year. It is important that all resource supplying organizations are involved in this work, including that for periodic data updates. This approach should become the standard for creating a single federal resource for digitizing all public utilities and networks in the country,” Rustam Minnikhanov added.