Stockholm, Nov. 13(CED) — Have a glance of the Russian government working style and way of talking at a conference. It is interesting that the leaders mentioned the President’s and the President’s Executive Order. It must be necessary and understandable. See the details:

Agenda: renewing the programme to offset the shortfall in revenue for the regions resulting from the investment-related deductions from corporate profit tax, funding the construction of pilot eco-industrial parks in the regions, and developing Russian software products.

Meeting with deputy prime ministers on current issues

Mikhail Mishustin’s opening remarks

Dmitry Chernyshenko’s presentation on developing Russian software products

Excerpts from the transcript:

Mikhail Mishustin: Good morning, colleagues.

In keeping with the President’s instructions, the Government continues to support the economy in the regions. Those of the regions that use the investment deduction for profit tax will still be able to recover some of the shortfall in their revenue from the federal budget – up to 200 million roubles per company. The resolution to this effect has been signed.

We had this measure in place last year, and this document renews it for 2022 and next year. To benefit from this mechanism, regions must confirm by 1 December that they have implemented the regional investment standard, which is a package of measures to improve their investment appeal.

This deduction is popular among businesses and is one of the mechanisms we have at our disposal for encouraging businesses’ investment activity. It enables investors to pay less profit tax and cut projects costs, which, in turn, enables them to bring their undertakings to fruition sooner.

Environment is another item on today’s agenda.

Developing waste processing infrastructure is an important element of environmental protection efforts. The President has drawn our attention to the fact that this is a sensitive issue that affects the quality of life for millions of people.

As part of the Circular Economy initiative, the Government has drafted a resolution enabling us to launch the construction of eight eco-industrial parks in the regions, spanning all federal districts.

Over 900 million roubles have been earmarked in this year’s federal budget to this effect. This subsidy will go towards designing these eco-technology parks for the land plots that were selected for building these facilities.

This money will also go towards surveying and construction over the next two years. This will create new manufacturing facilities in these parks, including plants for processing tires, plastic, chemical waste and many other kinds of waste. These companies will create new jobs. We can already make products the market needs, especially in the construction sector, or making foam packing peanuts.

We expect these measures not only to reduce the impact on the environment, but to serve as an effective investment in the regional economies.

Ms Abramchenko, I am asking you to oversee the efforts to set up these eco-technology parks.

Today, we will also discuss the development of Russian software products.

The President instructed to ensure Russia’s independence from foreign software. To achieve this goal, at the Industrial Russia’s Digital Industry conference held in Nizhny Novgorod last summer, we decided to create 33 industrial competence centres. They have brought together 300 organisations, coordinating customers’ and developers’ efforts. The main goal is to determine industries’ software substitution needs and select projects for scaling up in the key economic sectors.  

We must have competitive software that would be sought-after by companies. It is not always necessary to develop it from scratch. In many cases, we already have alternatives that are almost ready and only need proper calibration to suit a company’s specific needs.

Obviously, the Government is ready to offer support, primarily by providing grants for product development.

During strategic sessions for businesses and experts, we spoke in detail about the progress in this work. I personally attended those sessions and issued a number of instructions to systematise, scale up and enhance the projects and their functionality.

Currently, competence centres have created 335 projects, the majority being eligible for grant support. More than 140 projects are using customers’ and developers’ own resources.

Mr Chernyshenko, please tell us more about the projects and the latest results achieved by the competence centres.

Dmitry Chernyshenko: Mr Mishustin, allow me to report on the progress in fulfilling your instructions, issued as per the President’s Executive Order, to complete transition to Russian software at critically important information infrastructure facilities.  

As you noted, indeed, more than 335 industrial software solutions were presented at the start. In cooperation with the country’s largest and well-known companies representing all the key economic industries (Russian Railways, Transmashholding, Kalashnikov, United Aircraft Corporation, United Engine Corporation – there are hundreds of companies with which you personally had meetings). We have fulfilled your instructions and conducted a thorough analysis on scaling up and unifying the solutions.  Working groups were headed personally by top managers of the leading companies – and it was very important because they knew what decisions were necessary, what industry software they would choose and use to replace foreign software. Currently, we have selected and approved 216 projects across all industries: metal production, machine production, energy, transport, construction, agriculture, housing and utilities, and many others. The projects cover all types of software required for the work of our modern companies. These include resource management systems, production management, information modelling – all categories of systems.

Forty-four out of these 216 projects came as the result of consolidated cross-industry solutions. They will be used by entire groups of companies. For example, United Aircraft Corporation and United Engine Corporation created an integrated project to manage production processes. 

As far as we can see, businesses show a lot of interest and engagement when it comes to developing home-grown IT solutions. There is an obvious rationale behind this interest, since Russian companies have spent some 200 billion roubles on foreign software licences in the past year alone. The efforts undertaken as per your instructions enable us to use the released funds to develop our own IT solutions for ensuring our technological sovereignty and independence. Our IT companies will contribute to this undertaking and will probably receive the biggest procurement order as part of this large-scale effort.

Acting on their own initiative, companies operating in various sectors have come together under the leadership of those in charge of the digital transformation to develop these projects and invest in them. We see that businesses have assumed substantial financial commitments by promising to provide over 155 billion roubles to this effect.

This will not only satisfy the needs of all customers in specific sectors, but also enable our home-grown solutions to succeed on the export market and fulfil their immense potential in this sphere. These funds will go towards developing solutions for all manufacturing industries and across all sectors of the economy. In keeping with your instructions, we will make sure that these IT solutions are rolled out as quickly as possible. Our objective is to see the first results from this project as soon as next year and in 2024.

Shortly, we will also fine-tune and approve projects to set up competence centres for developing system software and applications. We will report to you on the outcomes of these and will be proactive in supporting our software developers in launching competitive products on foreign markets.

To do so, the Ministry of Industry and Trade and the Ministry of Digital Development created the so-called digital attaché service. We will also allocate funding from the budget for all the solutions we have supported. The Ministry of Digital Development has earmarked 28 billion roubles for these projects.

The ministry will report to the Government once a month on these projects. We expect to see the first results as soon as next year, and we will make sure to keep you updated.

Thank you for your personal involvement and for overseeing this project.

Mikhail Mishustin: Thank you, Mr Chernyshenko.

Considering the growing pressure we face from the West, strengthening our technology sovereignty, helping companies and offering them up-to-date Russian software products is among our priorities. We need our own software in order to ensure that our critical infrastructure runs smoothly.

It is essential that these products become available on the market as soon as possible and that they are relevant for businesses, while also targeting the export market. We have all it takes to meet these objectives, most importantly, the talented developers who can deliver on the most challenging tasks.

I am asking you to oversee efforts to develop, support, implement and distribute Russian software. Of course, feedback from businesses is essential when taking decisions.