Prime Minister Vladimir Putin will chair a conference on civilian shipbuilding during a planned visit to St. Petersburg, a government source said.
"Principal development criteria for the Russian civilian shipbuilding industry are planned to be considered at the conference and a strategy for its further development is to be worked out," the source told Interfax.
"The satisfaction of national needs for military and civilian shipbuilding, the maintenance of the positions in the world military shipbuilding market, and exports of civilian products are to become the key points of this strategy," he said.
Making various high-tech civilian vessels such as icebreakers, research ships, specialized vessels for the Emergency Situations Ministry, floating nuclear power plants, platforms for offshore oil fields, and sea and river transportation boats might be prospective niches for Russian shipbuilding, the source said.
Russia's shipbuilding also includes a significant military sector - building vessels for the Russian navy and for export, he said.
The government is conducting permanent financial and economic monitoring of key shipbuilding enterprises as an anti-crisis measure, the source said.
"Since ship construction is a lengthy period, the accessibility of loans from Russian banks is one of the main problems of the industry in the current situation. The chief measure of state financial support that enterprises in the industry ask for is partial subsidizing of the interest on loans," he said.
Russia's state-controlled shipbuilding industry consists of 168 enterprises, has a total work force of about 160,000, has its principal manufacturing units located in the northwest, and receives its supplies from more than 2,000 enterprises. There are also more than 100 private companies involved in building and repairing vessels.