(AGENPARL) - Roma, 4 Aprile 2023 - (AGENPARL) – KREMLIN mar 04 aprile 2023

President Vladimir Putin: Good
afternoon, colleagues.

One of the top priorities on our agenda today is the development of Russia’s industry, our
industrial potential, including in light of such factors as external pressure.

You know
that many sectors have been affected by the sanctions. The Western instigators
of this blockade have severed trade, economic and cooperation ties.

Nevertheless,
we were able to concentrate our resources and efforts to ensure economic stability,
including by taking a number of necessary steps to replace Western products
with Russian analogues or foreign ones, from friendly countries. We started
investing actively in replacing imported equipment and software, and introducing new mechanisms of preferential and project financing.

At the enterprise we visited earlier today, one of the company’s managers said a remarkable phrase. He said, We were forced to switch to import substitution
where we had never thought of it before. This is the key phrase – ”we are
forced.“ I think if we had not been forced to do it, we would never have
done it. But as it is, our colleagues are working on it and everything is working
out.

I will not
list everything, of course, but I would like to stress that we had to work fast
and very hard, I mean across the country as a whole. We can already see the positive results. Moreover, and I spoke about this in my Address to the Federal
Assembly, we have been able to enter a new cycle of economic growth.

Today,
taking into account the dynamics of the situation, we will determine the next
steps in industrial development. I would like to note here that the sanctions,
as we all realise, are a long-term prospect, so along with the priority
measures to replace imported technologies and products, we also need medium-
and long-term changes aimed at ensuring the strategic goals of the country’s
sovereign development.

I would also like to note the following aspect. In 2014, we responded to Western sanctions and limited deliveries
of foreign agricultural produce to the domestic market. Right now, we also
discussed this issue with workers at the enterprise and with the plant’s staff.
This became a valuable positive factor for the development of Russian
agriculture, major farms and private farms with reliance on their own
potential, in the first place. Essential conditions were created for rapid
import substitution and for expanding agricultural production. Russian citizens
obtained a wide range of Russian-made goods and foodstuffs that also proved to be more environmentally friendly, purer and of higher quality.

Not only did we manage to expand
production, but we substantially increased export deliveries, and this also
emphasises the high quality of our produce.

For your information, agricultural
producers of all categories boosted production by 27.4 percent between 2014 and 2022. In 2022, the agro-industrial sector posted $41.6 billion worth of exports,
a 2.1-fold increase on 2014, more than double.

Today, the industry, just like
agriculture, has all the required conditions for active development. I am
confident that we will be able to achieve the same impressive results here. Although
this is, of course, a difficult and complicated objective, we will certainly accomplish
it.

We need to create a package of support
measures and incentives as soon as possible. This package would make it
possible to facilitate a more rapid development of the processing industry, allowing
us to promptly launch production of critical goods, to increase the depth of raw materials processing, to develop entirely new products and technologies and to launch their production.

I would like to note that the Ministry of Economic Development and the Bank of Russia have accomplished a lot
in the field of the so-called taxonomy. In effect, this implies the formulation
of transparent criteria and standards for technological sovereignty and structural adaptation projects. Consequently, banks will abide by more lenient loan issue requirements,
while financing industry (this does not mean that quality will be impaired),
and loans will become more affordable.

I would like to emphasise that the Russian Federation’s territories should, of course, adopt the most proactive
stance, while promoting major projects and supporting small and medium-sized
industrial businesses. Today, we are staying in Tula, one of the country’s
industrial centres. Of course, it is possible to see more clearly here on the ground, how the situation is developing. I am asking regional leaders to motivate their teams to work actively and to become involved in this work.

To be continued.

Fonte/Source: http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/70860