NOVO OGAREVO, July 30, /ITAR-TASS/. Components for Russian weapons and miliatry equipment which until now were bought in Ukraine will be replaced with domestically manufactured ones in 2.5-3 years, Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin said on Wednesday.
“We are moving steadily to make everything, at least military products, in Russia,” he said.
Rogozin said the government would draft a plan for replacing dual-purpose equipment and technologies earlier purchased in Western countries as it has already done for products made in Ukraine.
“We are now working on issues relating to the substitution of import from NATO countries,” he said.
Rogozin said a new round of sanctions “was not a surprise for the Russian authorities”. “We expected it and started working on this in February. The coup happened in Kiev on February 21 and on the following day, February 22, we started working on this issue. It was all clear to us how the situation would develop. Both the Ministry of Industry and Trade and Rosatom are working on this now. We understood that we had to prepare for the worst and we expected the worst from the very beginning,” he said.
Import substitution will allow Russian enterprises to earn an additional 30 billion roubles’ worth of output annually from 2015, Minister of Industry and Trade Denis Manturov said.
Russia is fully dependent on the import of gas turbines for frigates, corvettes and other warships. Their Russian analogues will be made by Rybinsk’s Saturn and gear cases by St. Petersburg’s Zvezda plant.
“There is a long list of components, several thousands, which have been imported from abroad, including Ukraine, that will now be made in Russia. This is a rather big help for Russian enterprises as this will mean an additional output worth more than 30 billion roubles a year starting from 2015. Some components can be replaced within six months and some within three years,” Manturov said.
Import substitution will spur industrial growth in Russia, Rostec Corporation Head Sergei Chemezov said.
“We must be prepared for external demand restrictions in the West. This is why we must link prospects for industrial growth to internal expenditures and the development of the domestic market in the first place,” Chemezov said.
“The focal point is the implementation of import-substituting programmes,” he stressed.
If sanctions are imposed against Russia and cooperative ties with foreign partners get broken, “we will be able to make necessary products on our own territory”, Chemezov said and urged everyone “to step up this work in every possible way”.
One way would be to make industry more attractive for investors, “primarily high-tech machine-building as its foundation”, he added.
In April, President Vladimir Putin held a meeting on import substitution in connection with the risk of disrupted supply from Ukraine.