#2 - JRL 7230
POCHINOK ON SIZEABLE GROWTH OF RUSSIANS' REAL INCOMES IN LAST THREE YEARS

ST.PETERSBURG, JUNE 19 (RIA NOVOSTI-NORTHWEST CORRESPONDENT SVETLANA CHIRIKOVA) - In the last three years, real incomes of the population in Russia have considerably increased, said Alexander Pochinok.

The Russian labour and social development minister said this on Thursday in St.Petersburg, presenting a report at the St.Petersburg International Economic Forum round table. The report was on the guidelines and priorities in the development of countries of the Commonwealth of Independent States in the social and labour sphere.

"The last three years have been most successful for the Russian social sphere - a 32-percent growth in the population's real incomes over three years, or about 10 percent annually. We've never had such a performance," he said.

In comparison with the 2000 level, the average per-capita income has increased by 234 percent, average wages by almost 290 percent, pensions by 210%, said Pochinok.

The level of wages and pensions is still rather low in Russia, he admitted. "For all years to come we intend a steady increase in wages - over 20 percent annually. It is the minimal level we need," he noted.

In his opinion, the wages share in the Russian gross domestic product is artificially lowered. As unsatisfactory is the subsistence minimum-wage minimum ratio.

"We have assumed in the Labour Code a very high but wholly necessary obligation: the minimal wage must eventually reach the subsistence minimum," stressed Alexander Pochinok