Industrial export supported insufficiently in Russia

The budget of the current year stipulates $500 million to support the export of Russian industrial products

The mechanism to support the export of Russian industrial products in Russia has not been implemented in 2004, the head of the Ministry for Economic Development German Gref said Thursday.

”We have lost time. We have to acknowledge we have lost the year 2004 to back up the export of Russian industrial products,” the minister stated at the session of the Russian government.

According to Gref, the industrial products export growth in the Russian Federation is connected with the delivery of energy carriers. However, the share of machines and equipment in the export structure is extremely low: only nine percent of the total export volume, whereas it reaches 40 percent in developed countries.

The minister believes it is explained with price fluctuations and low competitive ability of Russian technical goods, Interfax reports. Furthermore, German Gref said all adequate departments had paid a lot of attention to all addresses from Russian exporters in 2004.

”The majority of addresses were connected with the financial support. Exporters' priorities are: credits, tender guarantees, timely VAT refunds and the implementation of competitive principles due to the imperfection of the customs law,” the minister was quoted as saying.

In the autumn of 2003 the government approved the concept for the development of the financial support of the industrial export. The concept stipulates, credit terms will depend on the groups of exported goods. The financial support of the industrial export is to be included in the federal budget of the adequate year.

The sum of the state support of the export in 2004 set in the budget 2004 is worth $500 million. It is planned to spend $850 million for this purpose in 2005.

”First and foremost it goes about state guarantees for exporters and banks in the sum of $600 million,” Gref stated.

Furthermore, the budget will spend $150 million for the introduction of financial instruments for interest rates balancing of Russian and foreign banks. About $100 million are scheduled for new export loans.

”These figures are lower than in developed and developing countries. Yet, they do not confuse us, because our prime goal is to launch the mechanism in 2005,” the minister said.

”If we can set up transparent state support mechanisms, in 2006 we will be able to talk about larger funds assigned for these purposes,” German Gref said.

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Author`s name Olga Savka
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