The Federation Council's Expert Council on the Arctic and Antarctic will advise the Russian government to work out a new national Arctic coast development program, Arctic-Info news agency said. The Council made the decision at a presidium meeting that took place in Omsk as part of the International Exhibition of High Technology and Equipment for the Arctic, Siberia and the Far East (Omsk-2015).

Rafael Abramyan, director of the Economic Development Ministry's Department for Interregional and Cross-Border Cooperation, said the current Arctic development program is not addressing its goals in a methodical and comprehensive manner.

"The program needs to be reworked, proceeding from the present realities. We need to face up to reality and acknowledge that the program does not measure up to the current situation," Nikolai Rogozhkin, the Presidential Plenipotentiary Envoy to the Siberian Federal District, said.