Looking to the long-term, Russia rebuilds its economic structure and cracks sanctions
【Today's Viewpoint】
The Governor of the Central Bank of Russia, Nabiullina, delivered a speech in the State Duma not long ago, saying that the current sanctions against Russia by the United States and Western countries mainly impact the financial market, but the impact on the real economy will be significantly enhanced in the near future. The most important problem is It is to restrict import and foreign trade logistics. Russian real economy producers need to find new partners and logistics channels, or adjust the production of previous generations of products.
Some Russian economists said that the sanctions from the United States and the West will be long-term, and it is imperative for Russia to rebuild its economic structure.
For example, Russia's oil and gas industry, aviation industry and electronics industry are the most severely sanctioned industries, and these are precisely the key areas of the Russian economy, which seriously threaten Russia's economic security.
Find new energy markets
The oil and gas industry has always been the backbone of Russia's economy, accounting for 15% to 20% of Russia's GDP, but the war between Russia and Ukraine has seriously threatened the future development of the industry.
The United States, the United Kingdom and other countries have announced a ban on the import of Russian oil, gas and coal, and the European Union has also announced a ban on the import of Russian coal from August this year.
According to the European Commission's previous recommendations, EU member states will reduce their dependence on Russian gas by 67% by the end of this year and completely reject Russian oil and gas by 2030.
This means that after 10 years, Russia will completely lose the traditional European energy market, and finding a new energy market has become the top priority of the Russian government.
To this end, President Putin put forward three work directions at the work conference on the situation of Russia's oil and gas industry not long ago.
The first is to speed up the diversification of oil and gas exports, adjust the direction of energy exports, reposition energy exports to the fast-growing southern and eastern markets, and identify relevant infrastructure projects and construction issues as soon as possible.
The second is to expand the natural gas market in Russia.
Although Russia is a major natural gas producer in the world, the degree of natural gasification in remote areas within Russia is not high.
Last year, Russia passed the "Free Natural Gas Law", and by 2024 and 2030, the domestic gasification target will be completed in stages, which will increase the demand for natural gas in Russia, and Russia will reduce the price of natural gas in the internal market to further stimulate the internal market. .
The third is the development of deep processing of oil and gas, and additional investment should be made in this field to accelerate the implementation of large-scale projects and accelerate the production of modern enterprises.
Rebuilding the production system of the aviation industry
Due to sanctions, both Boeing and Airbus have announced that they will no longer sell aircraft, spare parts and related services to Russia. As a result, Russia currently has only 193 aircraft that can perform international routes, of which 148 are Russian-made Sukhoi Super 100 aircraft. .
The more than 700 aircraft leased before the Russian-Ukrainian war can only be used in Russia, and there are problems such as spare parts and maintenance, which seriously affects the survival and development of the Russian air transport industry.
To this end, Russia can only rely on its own efforts, urgently formulate plans for the production of the Sukhoi Super 100 passenger aircraft, Tu-214 passenger aircraft and MS-21 passenger aircraft, and rebuild the aviation industry production system.
The Sukhoi Super 100 passenger aircraft is Russia's first civil aircraft designed according to Western airworthiness standards. Production was interrupted briefly in 2019.
Since this model is equipped with engines produced in cooperation with France and some American-made spare parts, the foreign spare parts currently in storage can only produce 19 Sukhoi Super 100 passenger aircraft in 2022. Russia plans to completely replace the imported zero-flight aircraft in 2024. 20 units of this model can be produced annually after components.
Russian Deputy Prime Minister Borisov said that the proportion of foreign parts and components used in the Tu-214 passenger aircraft developed in the former Soviet Union is very small, and it can be localized within a year and fully autonomously produced. Kazan Aircraft Factory, Russia It can produce 10 Tu-214 passenger aircraft every year.
In addition, only 50% of the parts of the MS-21 passenger plane, which has been highly expected by Russia, are made in Russia. At present, foreign manufacturers refuse to provide parts, and Russia can only step up research and development of parts that can be used to replace imported parts.
A few days ago, Irkutsk Governor Kobzev said that the first batch of MC-21 passenger aircraft using domestic parts is scheduled to be delivered in 2024. 21 mass production speed.
Accelerate the research and development of microelectronics technology and industrial construction
Russia's microelectronics industry is relatively backward, semiconductor chips basically rely on foreign technology, and its own chip production capacity is limited. Only Russian Mikron Company relies on imported materials to produce 65-nanometer chips.
After the Russian-Ukrainian war started, the United States, Europe, Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan, which dominate global semiconductor high-tech, have banned the sale of high-tech products such as semiconductors and telecommunications technology to Russia, cutting off Russia’s access to high-end chips and the materials and materials needed to re-produce these products locally. way of parts.
This not only seriously affects the current chip production, but also poses a serious threat to the future development of new technologies such as artificial intelligence, 5G Internet services and robots in Russia.
To this end, on April 14, President Putin formed an intergovernmental committee within the framework of the Federal Security Conference to guarantee the technical independence of the country in the field of IT infrastructure development.
The committee is headed by Medvedev, vice-president of the Federal Security Council.
At present, Russia has formulated a national project to develop microelectronics technology, and plans to invest about 3.19 trillion rubles by 2030 for semiconductor design and production technology development, data center infrastructure construction, personnel training, etc., and achieve 90-nanometer domestic production by the end of 2022. Chip manufacturing, 28-nanometer domestic chip manufacturing will be realized in 2030.
In addition, the Moscow Institute of Electronic Technology of Russia has undertaken the project of lithography machine developed and manufactured by the Russian Ministry of Trade and Industry.
The project plans to use X-ray technology to develop a new EUV lithography machine that can produce chips without a photomask. The Russian government invested 670 million rubles in the first phase.
The reconstruction of the above three industries is only an important aspect of Russia's response to sanctions. Other fields such as tourism, automobiles, pharmaceuticals, and construction industries basically need structural adjustment.
Although Kudrin, director of the Russian Federal Audit Office, publicly stated that Russia needs more than 2 years to recover from the economic recession caused by sanctions, Oleg Deripaska, the king of Rusal, said that Russia needs 4-5 years. Rebuild new export markets, and restore and improve the industrial chain and production system of key industries in the Russian economy within 10 years.
It appears that Russia's road to rebuilding its economic structure will be long.