"We have no illusions that all problems will be resolved in two years. It has to be acknowledged that over 15 years we had destroyed [almost] everything and then slowly began the reconstruction effort in the past few years," Alexei Gordeyev said.
He said that if dynamic growth was ensured for five successive years, Russia could only reach the 1990 level, adding that social problems remained, above all the living standards in the countryside, including the demographic problem.
First Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, who oversees the national projects in education, health care, agriculture and housing designed to improve living standards in Russia, said earlier that tackling Russia's demographic crisis will become a mega-project that will connect the country's four priority national projects.
President Vladimir Putin called the decline in Russia's population - which he said was falling by 700,000 people a year - the country's biggest problem in his May 10 state of the nation.
