Excerpt from Dmitry Medvedev’s opening remarks during a meeting on the current state of automotive industry and its primary development strategies until 2025
We need to discuss measures to support the automotive industry and determine the main development strategies until 2025.
We took certain decisions last year. The industry had posted fast development rates before the crisis. The industrial assembly policy had translated into virtually a 180-billion-rouble investment into Russia’s economy and 25,000 new jobs. Manufacturers of car parts and components had contributed another 45 billion roubles of investment.
The Russian automobile market had become Europe’s fifth largest behind Germany, the UK, Italy and France, with the majority, or around 80 percent, of cars produced in Russia.
The market is still in the negative territory today for well-known reasons. Sales of all types of cars fell by nearly a third last year compared to 2014. Still, we managed to prevent production freezes and mass layouts. To a great degree, this was achieved thanks to Government measures.
In 2015, the automotive industry received 43 billion roubles in state support. The programmes stimulating demand, which involved updating the car fleet and reducing car credit and rental rates, had a positive effect. Out of over 1.5 million new cars purchased last year, over a third were purchased at a special reduced rate. We will continue this policy this year.
According to current estimates, the market will not post a significant growth in the near future. Both the rouble rate and the rising price of car parts don’t play in its favour.
We must urgently organise our efforts on replacing the imports of car parts. We must ensure we have our own domestic chain of production from raw materials to the final product; create a list of car parts to start their production in our country; lay the foundations for the design of promising materials and parts. This is one of our key goals.
We must be more careful in the evaluation of our export opportunities and promote our companies and brands on foreign markets. It is the global market presence that enables a national automotive industry to continue its steady development both today and in the long term.
The Government resolution on the automotive industry support programme for 2016 has been signed. The industry will receive more in subsidies than any other civilian industry. The programme aims at providing the basis for the resumption of growth of Russian carmakers. The total volume of financing will reach 50 billion roubles. In real figures, it equals the 2015 support package volume.
Original source: government.ru
