Putin: Main Task Is To Consolidate This Year's Successes

Vladimir Putin believes that the consolidation of this year's positive trends, above all in the economy, will be the main task for 2002. In reply to a question live on the RTR and ORT television channels, the president also talked about the need to review and "give effect" to laws approved this year. Having remarked that Russia had had its share of revolutions in the past century, Putin expressed his hope that there would be no more revolutions and that the 21st century would bring only positive and confident progress for the country. The head of state said that if the population's standard of life were improved, if only by a little, then he would consider next year's tasks to have been completed.