There was held on December 12, 2022 on the premises of the Russian Parliament, the State Duma the second session of the Chemical Industry Development Expert Board at the State Duma’s Connittee on Industry and Commerce under the agenda entitled “Import Substitution Plan, key downflow product chains, and state support improvement measures aimed at development of the chemical industry”.
There have participated in the said Think-tank's session there Vice-Minister of Industry and Trade of the Russian Federation Mr. Michael Ivanov, President of Russian Chemists Union Mr. Viktor Ivanov, a few scientists including a couple of academicians of the Russian Academy of Sciences, prominent businessmen, and industry-specific NGO’s and Associations.
Association “RusChlor” have been represented there by the think-tank's permanent members Messrs Boris Yagud and Michael Baranov the former being the said association’s Executive Director and the latter being the Chairman of the Board of Directors of Moscow LLC "NIKOCHEM”.
The said two and the other permanent members in the Expert Board that participated in the event have raised in their interventions a few issues linked to the aforementioned Import Substitution Plan for the chemical industry, discussed both the current state and the perspectives for production and use of methanol, considered Actions Plan worked out by the Board for the next year, and triggered off the process of formation of the Issue Teams for the think-tank’s key lines of activity.
In so doing Ms. Marija Vasil'kova, the member of the State Duma who was chairing the Expert Board has underlined to the participants in the Board’s considered session that positive development of the chemical industry had made up one of the foundations for the development of all the key sectors of the national economy.
“We are now facing a formidable challenge. The point is that we have to carry out in a very short time rather a large–scale program to revive or kick-start again the small- and medium-scale chemical industry (SMSCI) in Russia”, - underlined Ms. Vasil’kova to the participants in the meeting.
The participants in the meeting have in their turn maintained that there have been sanctioned hundreds of the trademarks of the chemical both goods and technologies, which has adversely influenced the logistic chains, shipments, development of the large-scale production, and Economy as a whole.
There have been also stressed at the meeting that based on the results of a comprehensive research conducted in close cooperation with prominent scientists and business people the Ministry of Industry and Trade of the Russian Federation has managed to single out the 22 key logistic chains for the chemical goods shipments that both the strategic safety and development of the Russian Federation are dependent on.
Vice Minister of Industry and Trade Mr. Michael Ivanov has argued in this connection that SMSCI should make up for one of the priority lines of providing for the state support and incentives.
“We shall have to make use of all the existing mechanisms for providing the chemical industry facilities with support while both inventing the new such mechanisms and aggressively drawing the new linked industries in that work including, of course, the equipment makers. This must result in stimulating the development of domestic technologies”, - maintained Mr. Ivanov in this connection.
The meeting has also considered an official report by Ministry of Industry and Trade. The report was presented by Director of the Ministry’s Department of Chemical-Engineering Complex and Bioengineering Technologies Mr. Michael Yurin. There has been in particular stressed in the report the Ministry’s suggestion that it is worth under the current situation focusing the efforts of both the government and business community on development of the so called critical technologies. The Ministry’s rationale as Mr. Yurin has put it is that if a project of the considered kind might look unprofitable even in the closest past, there have appeared such mechanisms recently that can help relocate the project’s performance estimations into the “positive” zone.
Mr. Yurin has also stressed to the listeners in this connection that industry badly needs for its development to modernize the normative legal regulation system as well as to implement the special support measures for the sector. In so doing the said measures are thought to be aimed at creating and developing the chemical clusters, industrial estates, and technology parks. The point is that those forms of business organization are thought to be instrumental in making a breakthrough in the chemical industry.
As Vice-Chairman of the Expert Board, President of Russian Chemists Union Mr. Viktor Ivanov has put it there exists an urgent necessity for the chemical industry to take on a meticulous work on first collecting the analytical data and then developing such legal initiatives that should presumably facilitate the future development of the industry.
Mr. Ivanov has also said to the meeting in this connection: “It is utterly important that the import substitution chemical goods that have been suggested by the Ministry of Industry and Trade for the business community’s consideration should in the first place undergo the expert examination at Department of Chemistry and Material Science of Academy of Science of the Russian Federation.
First Deputy Chairman of the State Duma Committee for Education and Science Mr. Alexander Mazhuga has remind to the attendees of the Expert Board session being considered of the meeting of the President of the Russian Federation that Mr. Vladimir Putin had hold with the participants in the Second Congress of Young Scientists and Management Manpower Development Program students in the fields of science, technologies, and the higher School. In so doing Mr. Mazhuga has elaborated on the said matter a little further. In particular, he has made a point that Mr. Putin had upheld a suggestion made by Director of A.E. Favorsky Institute of Chemistry of the Siberian Branch of the Academy of Science of the Russian Federation Mr. Andrew Ivanov concerning the development of the small-scale / light-duty chemistry in the Russian Federation on the base of the Scientific Research Institutes and Universities.
In particular, Mr. Mazhuga has stressed to the listeners: “Having taken into account the fact that the products manufactured by the small-scale / light-duty chemical industry bears a lot of intellectual effort and creativity in itself one can easily suppose that it is the premises of Universities and research Institutes that can make up the best environment for raising the low-capacity production facilities there of the kind being considered. I do suggest therefore that the high time has already come for the industry-specific colleges and Research Institutes demonstrated with their own effort their importance for the countru. I also believe in this connection that the Russian Scientists are pretty able of providing the country with all the necessary”. Based on the aforementioned Mr. Alexander Mazhuga has suggested that there should be created a Working Group on the Small-Scale Chemistry within the structure of the Expert Board.
In the course of discussion that followed there has been spotted out an urgent task there which is to modernize the Technical Regulation Legislation in such a way as to both simplify and update the industry-specific legal norms, on the one hand, and, on the other hand, to both develop anew and trigger-off the mechanisms of industry-specific targeted state support so that there should rise investments into creation of the modern, import substitution production facilities under the warranty made by the state that there will be ordered a guaranteed amount of production from those facilities under both the offset contracts and lessened the tax burden.
Ms. Marija Vasil'kova has added to the aforementioned the suggestion that there should be conducted such an analysis that would make it possible to refine the industry-specific criteria, which in its turn would make it possible to grant the Chemical Industry products the status of the “Russian Product”. She has elaborated on the just said a little further with an additional suggestion that there should be also refined both the criteria and rules for such differentiated financing the industry-specific projects that could take into account the technology cycles length as well as the cycles’ both sophistication and strategic importance for the country.
“I would like to dwell a little more on the issue of practicability of formatting the industry specific measures of supporting the small and medium entrepreneurship (SME) because it is the SME can really become the engine behind the SMSCI development. The point is that the big business is not always interested in mitigating the so called "bottle neck" problems in marginal segments of the industry. On the other hand though it is the leverage of cooperation of big business and SME that has the potential for bringing about a considerable synergetic effect of implementation of the special mechanisms of stimulation", - Ms. Marija Vasil'kova has argued.