Alexander Krutikov to oversee Arctic development at Ministry for the Development of the Russian Far East

Deputy Minister for the Development of the Russian Far East Alexander Krutikov will be in charge of the development of the Arctic, Deputy Prime Minister and Presidential Plenipotentiary to the Far Eastern Federal District Yury Trutnev said during a press conference in Moscow.

“The prime minister identifies and appoints deputy ministers. Dmitry Medvedev and I held discussions, and for now Alexander Krutikov will be working on Arctic affairs. He is an experienced and qualified individual. He will start working immediately. The Arctic Forum is coming up, and today we are receiving the entire flow of instructions on the Arctic. Someone needs to be working on this”, Trutnev said.

Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev previously submitted the Russian Government’s proposal to Russian President Vladimir Putin on adding issues involving the implementation of state policy in the Arctic zone to the purview of the Ministry for the Development of the Russian Far East. Putin supported the initiative.

Medvedev stressed that the Arctic is home to some of Russia’s greatest resource potential, which makes this a truly important focus. “New ports and new energy facilities are currently being built there. Naturally, places are being created for comfortable living since a rather large number of our people work in the Arctic zone”, he said. Medvedev also noted that the Russian Government does not have a unified structure that coordinates these activities.

“I have a proposal. In order to shift this work within the Government to a level of systemic activities, Arctic affairs should also be added to the purview of the Ministry for the Development of the Russian Far East. In doing so, we will not create any new government bodies. There will only be the single ministry, but it will be in charge of working on the development of our entire Arctic zone. I believe this is quite natural since the Ministry for the Development of the Russian Far East is currently developing the Far Eastern zone, which is part of the Arctic. Essentially, these are issues that rather frequently overlap: for instance, the development of Yakutia or Chukotka is still the development of the Arctic zone”, Medvedev said.

Source: Ministry for the Development of the Russian Far East, www.minvr.ru