#2
BBC Monitoring
President Putin answers questions: Hopes for sunny and prosperous 2003
Source: RTR Russia TV, Moscow, in Russian 0900 gmt 19 Dec 02

The final question in today's live studio broadcast from the Kremlin came from the studio interviewers Sergey Brilev and Yekaterina Andreyeva who asked Putin about his hopes for 2003.

He said: "In my view 2003 should be a year of strengthening Russia's statehood and our judicial and economic systems. In 2003, at the end of 2003, there will be elections to the parliament of the Russian Federation and I am very much banking on the new composition of the Duma being no less capable of work and no less responsible than the one that's at work now."

He went on to say: "The activities of the state should be far more effective. We must grasp the scale of the state. Not its territory, that is clear. We must grasp too the scale of the functions of the state apparatus at local and regional levels and at the federation level. We need to delimit areas of competence once and for all, to delimit rights, obligations and funding."

Putin outlined a number of economic aims. He said: "Our legislation should stimulate the so-called new economy, i.e. an economy based on information technology, a 21st century economy ... I am very much banking on the fact that all this together will facilitate or at least give a boost to changes in the structure of the Russian economy and to guaranteeing acceptable rates of growth and, as a result, to raising the prosperity of the citizens of the Russian Federation."

Before thanking everyone for phoning in, Putin said: "Finally, last of all, I very much hope that in 2003 we'll have more sunny, bright and joyful days and fewer sad and cloudy ones."

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