Government to attend to Kaliningrad problem in 2003 - 25 September, 2002

The Russian government has promised to attend to the problem of the Kaliningrad region (former Eastern Prussia inherited by the USSR after WWII, Russia's present-day enclave on the Baltic Sea) in 2003. Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov said as much in the State Duma on Wednesday while introducing the first reading of the draft 2003 budget.

"The Kaliningrad region will be a priority task for the federal authorities and neither its residents nor parliamentarians should fear being left alone with their problems," he stressed. According to him, the government will keep implementing the existing federal target programme of support to the region. The Prime Minister added that due to measures taken the volume of production in the Kaliningrad region had grown over the past few years.

"I would not promise that the former privileges /for the Kaliningrad region/ will still be valid, yet the region will be in charge of the government," Mikhail Kasyanov concluded.