The economic downturn against the background of the pandemic back on the agenda of the ideas of protectionism — the economic recovery plan has got 12 initiatives in support of import substitution, previously estimated at 1 trillion rubles in 2020-2021 years. In particular, the ministries have to provide new incentives for Russian manufacturers in public procurement — we are talking about quotas for domestic manufacturers in the procurement of state-owned companies and state aid depending on the procurement of local products. These measures should be implemented taking into account WTO rules that do not apply to purchases of the state, but forbid preferences in the procurement of state-owned companies. However, authorities obviously have to find ways to circumvent international obligations Vladimir Putin has instructed you to fine-tune such measures in light industry.Presented on Monday the President’s economic recovery plan contains a set of measures to support import substitution, while the government estimated at 1 trillion rubles in the next two years. Thus, the project extends support for complex investment projects, subsidizing the high-tech import-substituting projects, support electronic and radio-electronic industry (pilot batches of the means of production), the effect of protective measures will continue until 2021. In the Ministry of industry on June 3 did not respond to a request “b” on the timing of readiness and details of initiatives.The plan also envisages creation of a mechanism to confirm the origin of domestic products in digital format. Now the data on the country of origin are generated in the GIS “Industry” in manual mode: an examination of firms chamber of Commerce, after which the entrepreneurs independently direct the examination certificate to the Ministry for inclusion in the register of Russian products. “The Ministry has long been working on the translation system in electronic form, in particular, considered our proposals as the contractor’s system in high degree of readiness”,— said “Kommersant” the head of the Department confirming production of industrial CCI Evgeni Il’ichev.However, in accordance with the plan of preferential treatment can be greatly expanded: in particular, it is proposed to “reconcile” the state support of companies with the level of localization of the products they purchase, to introduce the mechanism of offset transactions (when purchasing imports linked to investment provider in the Russian economy) for the procurement of the state (FL-44) and state-owned companies (FZ-223), to provide quotas for Russian machine builders in the procurement of state-owned companies — the initiatives need to be developed with the participation of Russia in WTO.We will remind that earlier the legal Department at the President criticized the initiative of introducing a mandatory share of purchases from manufacturers for state-owned companies from-for discrepancies to norms of the WTO and the EAEU (see “Kommersant” ont may 19). Thus, the right of the EEU provides for equal access of companies from member countries to the procurement. Thus in exceptional cases, the member will unilaterally introduce exemptions from national treatment for a period not exceeding two years, but at the request of other member States should be organised consultations concerning the introduction of exemptions. However, the main obstacle to actual participation of the EAEC in public procurement each other while there were differences in the formats of electronic signature (no mutual recognition). As for WTO rules, Russia when joining the organization has not acceded to the agreement on government procurement (participation in the latter is voluntary — mainly includes the EU and other developed countries) that allows us to introduce quotas in the formation of the state order, but for companies with state participation there is no such uniqueness.So, yesterday at the meeting in support of the light industry by President Vladimir Putin in response to the request of the head of Board of Directors GK “Russian leather” Igor Surin priority for the Russian light industry in the procurement of public companies instructed the government to prepare such decisions. “There are no violations of WTO rules, as well as public corporations, it is necessary to consider here, to make thinner, corporations and companies with state participation”,— said the President. Note that the idea of protection of the Russian market due to the tightening naziregime procurement is not new: in 2014, the Minister of industry and trade Denis Manturov has offered to adjust the program of public procurement, a ban on the part of foreign goods for state-owned companies (see “Kommersant” on September 19, 2014).In turn, present at the meeting, the President, the first Vice Prime Minister Andrei Belousov has called on ministries and agencies to actively enjoy the right “to enter the mode of apostasia in public procurement, without waiting for action on quotas of purchases of Russian products.” Note, however, that although purchases from a single supplier can be held by decisions of the government and the President, but de facto a “manual” protectionism contradicts not only the principles of competition, but also deprives the customer of economic independence: to eliminate the consequences of such a multibillion-dollar “policy” procurement of Russian art in the crisis of 2008 the state company “Rosagrolizing” the government had to allocate a few billion to subsidize the sale of unclaimed agricultural machinery.Diana Galieva, Tatiana Edovina, Oleg Boots
