MOSCOW, September 25. /TASS/. Russian President Vladimir Putin announced the need to combat logistical barriers to domestic exports at a meeting of the State Council Presidium on the issue of export development.
"In recent years, our exporters' expenses on transshipment of products have increased, ship freight, insurance, and other things have become more expensive. Obviously, this has a direct impact on prices, and therefore on the competitiveness of domestic products abroad," he said.
In his opinion, Russia "needs, of course, to combat logistical barriers to its exports, to ensure transport connectivity, as they say, from the first to the last kilometer, and above all with the promising markets of the global South, Africa, and Latin America." The President drew attention to the development of new routes and international transport corridors.
At the same time, Putin noted that Russia has become a leading exporter in some areas in recent years, including agriculture. "In some areas, for example, food supplies, Russia has already become one of the world's leading exporters," he said. "This result, of course, is primarily the merit of specialists, enterprises’ staff, as well as development institutions, heads of regions, and federal authorities that support them," Putin noted.
He believes that Russia's non-resource, non-energy exports have quadrupled over the past 20 years and continue to grow. "From 2001 to 2023, the volume of Russia's non-resource, non-energy exports has grown more than fourfold - this is a good result, not some percentages," Putin said. According to him, the figure has increased from $36 bln to $148 bln.
"Of course, this is far from our limit. In fact, it is not that much," Putin added, noting that in the first seven months of 2024, non-resource, non-energy exports continued to grow, increasing by another 5% to $89.8 bln.
He noted that Russia should further boost and support its exporters to increase the volume of non-resource, non-energy exports.
"It is fundamentally important to help Russian companies enter into the markets of goods with high added value, to increase the so-called non-resource, non-energy exports, including the supply of engineering goods and food products," he said.