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Industry and Trade Minister Denis Manturov: I would like to report on the performance of the processing industries. Overall, these industries are recovering from the 2014−2015 crisis, and we expect 1 percent growth in 2017. Almost all sectors saw positive growth, with the exception of metal processing.

Three industries demonstrated the fastest growth: car manufacturing, agricultural equipment and vehicle production. These are the industries that the Government has been investing in significantly over the past several years. The scope of investment itself indicates these industries’ progress.

Transport engineering includes production of locomotives, passenger and freight cars in Tver. There was a 10 to 15 percent increase in machine tools production, heavy machinery production and power engineering.

Our pharmaceutical industry has been steadily growing by more than 10 percent annually thanks to your timely decision to adopt a pharmaceutical industry programme. Last year, this industry grew by 12 percent. Russia-produced medications now account for 84.6 percent of the vital medications market. According to your Executive Order from 2012, this year we must ensure a 90-percent share of Russian medications. I am one hundred percent certain we can do it.

As concerns aircraft manufacturing, chemical industry, timber processing and light industry, they have grown by 4 to 8 percent. I would like to particularly thank you for the success in light industry. You supported our initiative at the industry meeting last August. You supported our initiative on maintaining the measures of – first I wanted to say ‘support’ but in fact, it is ‘development’ because we have already entered the steady growth phase. This year we expect to maintain this positive dynamic.

President of Russia Vladimir Putin: How is the Industrial Development Fund working?

Denis Manturov: Mr President, the Fund is one of the main support instruments, including for sectoral import replacement projects. As of now, 35 companies are operating thanks to the Fund’s support. We have provided assistance to 268 projects since you adopted a decision to establish the Fund. Overall investments from the fund have reached 250 billion rubles, out of which 66 billion have been allocated via easy loans from the Industrial Development Fund.

The main thing is that this has encouraged the regions to create regional industrial development funds. They have registered 40 such funds with total allocations of over 5 billion rubles this year. All these funds have adopted the federal fund’s standards and are mostly focused on financing the projects of small and medium-sized businesses. In other words, we are financing small and medium enterprises. It is rather difficult for us to finance projects that are worth between 20 and 50 million rubles directly from the federal fund. Now we can ensure the sustainable development of this sector by providing 70 percent of the required funds from the federal fund, while the regions will allocate 30 percent.

As for the resumption of growth in domestic trade, it has shown an increment of 1 percent last year. This sector plunged by 10 percent in 2015 and decreased by 4.6 percent in 2016. Domestic trade is an extremely important sector that contributes nearly 15 percent of GDP. Therefore, last year’s increment [in domestic trade] amounts to a good increase throughout the national economy.

Regarding exports, the non-commodity exports increased by 19 percent last year, for the first time in a decade. We expected to show a 7 percent increase based on the export development programme, which the Government supported to compensate the export companies’ spending on logistics, homologation and certification.

Import replacement programmes continue to boost economic development. We have launched the production and delivery, including to foreign countries, of competitive products under 350 projects. We also plan to complete another 780 projects that have been included in our import replacement plans.

According to your instruction, each project should have an export component, which is why we provide funding only if up to 20 percent of goods are exported. We hope to be able to continue doing this in 2018 if we see further improvement, including in investment activity.

Vladimir Putin: Does the fund receive any replenishment?

Dmitry Manturov: Yes, Mr President. The Finance Ministry transferred 16.8 billion rubles to the fund ahead of schedule in December.

Vladimir Putin: Ok.

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