PM: Russian govt to support housing construction industry

MOSCOW, Apr 6 (PRIME) -- The Russian government has signed rulings to support housing construction during the coronavirus pandemic, Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin told a government meeting broadcast by Rossiya 24 television channel.

“We signed an array of rulings, and they include help to construction companies that are building residential housing. This sector switched into a new system of operation recently using escrow accounts. This was a serious change to the financial component of projects, it improved responsibility of developers and certainty of buyers, but expansion of the coronavirus led to new risks, so support of the housing construction industry is necessary,” he said.

The government will not penalize developers in from April 2 through January 1, 2021, and will not include blocks of flats in the lists of bad assets. This should allow businesses not to fear bankruptcies and maintain promising projects, while buyers would get their flats, he said.

The government prolonged some licenses and permits that should expire from March 1 until the end of 2020 for a year, including permits for construction services, production of medicines, provision of communications and security services, he said, adding that the prolongation also covers accreditations.

The government also decided to impose more limitations on inspections of small and medium-sized businesses.

“We cancelled all unscheduled inspections of small and medium-sized businesses. We will limit the grounds on which unscheduled inspections could be made additionally and seriously. They will only be appointed if there are real facts that the health of people was hurt or if there are serious threats of these incidents happening,” he said.

Mishustin also asked the government to prepare additional measures of economic support. He also said that the government already developed all the necessary by-laws for fighting the coronavirus pandemic during the past weekend.

The government allocated serious funds to Russia’s regions for the coronavirus measures, it is important to know whether the regions use them efficiently. The heads of regions should take proper measures to fight the coronavirus and not mistake regional powers for federal powers, he said.

He also said that organizers of all events that have been cancelled recently should refund tickets or offer tickets to other events. It is also bad to interfere with operations of online retailers and delivery services as they are doing everything they can to help people in the current situation, he added.

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