Welcoming speech for А+А 2009 catalogue

  Minister of Health and Social Development of the Russian Federation T.A. Golikova

Dear Colleagues,

On behalf of the Ministry of Health and Social Development of the Russian Federation and on my behalf, let me congratulate you with the opening of the A+A 2009 trade fair!

Now the world society has gained a great practical experience in the field of safety, security and health at work and providing employees with personal protection equipment to prevent or reduce effects of hazardous work conditions and climatic factors.

Due to its inhospitable climate and economic structure where for objective reasons there still exist working places with unhealthy labour conditions, Russia understands the importance and gives priority to issues of employees’ life and health security at work. Such matters are also an important part of the state’s demographic policy.

The main task of the demographic policy implementation in terms of labour protection, which is now being realized in Russia, is to lower death rate level and to decrease the number of injuries caused by accidents at work and professional illnesses. It is now necessary to move from the management system built mostly on the principle of reacting to insured accidents to the system based on economic encouragement of preventive and rehabilitative measures.

Russian specialists have great interest in the experience of Germany and the other EU-countries in development and realization of the general state strategy of professional risks reduction based on European directions, as well as in efficiency assessment of personal protection equipment used for such purposes.

I am sure that A + A 2009, the world’s largest and most important specialist trade fair for safety, security and health at work, and the International Congress will allow specialists to exchange ideas and discuss openly the existing problems and achievements, which is sure to bring positive outcomes and will find their realization in practice.

I wish all the participants of this trade fair good health and successful and fruitful work.

Т.А. Golikova