At a meeting with parliamentary leaders on Monday, Mr. Putin said he considered Mikhail Fradkov to be a “highly professional, decent man who has work experience in various spheres of government work”.

“We faced a difficult task of proposing a new head of government, and we came to the common conclusion that this is Mikhail Fradkov, the representative of the Russian Federation in the European Union Commission,” Vladimir Putin said, Channel One reports.

After consultations with the President, Boris Gryzlov, Chairman of the State Duma, said the candidature of Mikhail Fradkov would be discussed by the Duma on Friday, March 5.

Mikhail Fradkov was born on September 1, 1950, in Moscow. In 1972, he graduated from the Moscow Machine Building Institute, and in 1981 – from the Foreign Trade Academy. Since 1973, he has worked in the sphere of foreign economic relations, representing Russia in the GATT in the early 1990s.

In 1992-1997, Mr. Fradkov worked as Deputy Minister for Foreign Economic Relations. In 1997-1998, he was Minister for Foreign Economic Relations and Trade. In 1999-2000, Mr. Fradkov was Russia’s Trade Minister. In May 2000-March 2001, he worked as Senior Deputy Secretary of the Russian Security Council, after which he was appointed head of the Federal Service of Tax Police. After the service was abolished in March 2003, Mr. Fradkov was appointed Russia’s representative in the European Union in the rank of a minister.

In June 2003, he was appointed the presidential representative for relations with the European Union.

Mikhail Fradkov speaks English and Spanish. He is married with two children.