Anton Drozdov: "Minimum pension will be raised to match cost of living"

The Russian Pension Fund’s head Anton Drozdov has today arrived in Kazan with a working visit. Before noon, he and the Prime Minister of Tatarstan Roustam Minnikhanov attended an interregional seminar, dedicated to preparing the Russian Pension Fund divisions to operating in 2010 under bureaucratic administration of insurance contributions within mandatory pension and medical insurance.

Before the session, Anton Drozdov inspected the Pension Fund division in Tatarstan. The Tatarstan Agency for State Purchasing’s chief Yakov Geller held a presentation of an Electronic Commerce and Information System, ECIS, which first user was the local pension fund.

The seminar participants discussed amendments to Russian laws aimed to improve the national pension system in general. After January 1, 2010, valorisation of citizens’s pension rights will take place and the single social tax will be substituted with insurance contributions to state-run off-budget funds.

“The minimum pension rate will as early as this year be raised to match the cost of living,” noted the pension fund’s head. “You know we have four readjustments this year. By the year’s end, the minimal pension will in average total over 4,200 nationwide.”

According to him, non-working pensioners whose total income is less than the cost of living will from 2010 be paid federal and regional social benefits in addition to pension.

The average pension rate in Tatarstan is now 5,119 roubles, while the regional cost of living is 2,985 roubles. The average national retirement pension exceeds the federal cost of living as well. At the same time, many people have pensions lower than this. They are mostly receivers of retirement and social pensions related to the loss of breadwinner and 3rd group invalids. The citizens will be the main social groups entitled to additional payment.

On the same day the President of the Republic of Tatarstan Mintimer Shaimiev met with the Russian Pension Fund’s head Anton Drozdov.