Russian President Dmitry Medvedev Wednesday urged the fast development of the country's Arctic region that serves as a major energy and revenue source for the state.
"We have to finalize and adopt the federal law on the southern border of Russia's Arctic zone. The next is the fixing of the external border of the continental shelf," local media quoted Medvedev as saying at a meeting of the Security Council in the Kremlin.
Some 20 percent of Russia's Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and 22 percent of Russian exports were produced in the Arctic region, which hosts the country's largest oil fields such as the West Siberian, Timano-Pechorskaya and East Siberian.
"It's our obligation and our direct duty to the posterity (of the country); we should reliably, and for a long-term perspective, secure Russia's national interests in the Arctic region," Itar-Tass cited the Russian head of state as saying.
Medvedev said the Arctic continental shelf might contain about a quarter of all offshore reserves of hydrocarbons in the world, citing experts' estimations, noting that it bears significance to Russia's energy security.
"For Russia, the Arctic region has a strategic significance in the full sense. The solution of long-term tasks of the country and its competitiveness on global markets directly depend on this region," he said.
Medvedev also urged the government to boost the northern routes across the Arctic region that could link Europe and the Far East, pledging to secure reliable protection of national interests in the region.
Russia has been eyeing the rich gas-and-oil reserve in the Arctic zone where Russia shares a large part of the territory as well as the continental shelf. A group of Russian lawmakers even stuck a national flag on the Arctic seabed last year to claim its sovereignty.