Well, please!

The budget of the Rostov region pushes Don producers online

The administration of the Rostov region has decided, starting next year, to subsidize interest rates on loans to those local companies that are “breaking into” international and national retail chains. The preferential lending regime will apply to costs associated with meeting the traditional requirements of Metro Cash&Cary, O`key, Perekrestok, Ramstore and other retailers regarding product packaging standards, the presence of a bar code, and the like.

The heads of those Don plants and factories that cannot get on the shelves of hyper- and supermarkets constantly complained about retailers either to the regional administration or to deputies of the local legislative assembly. At the same time, the most radical requests were made, even to the point of banning chains from entering the region: they say that local shops and small wholesale markets willingly sell Don products, so let them continue to dominate the consumer market of the Rostov region. However, the Don authorities took exactly the opposite position.

In particular, the Rostov region was the first in Russia to make proposals to large retail chains to open their hypermarkets on the Don. Don Governor Vladimir Chub says that the arrival of such civilized trade formats in the region brings retail out of the “shadow,” which immediately has a positive effect on budget revenues. It is clear that the same Auchan would sooner or later come to the Rostov region, but if the company implements its project on the Don even a year or two earlier, the budget will receive direct benefits from this in the form of taxes during this time. “Besides, no matter how our producers complain, the arrival of the chains gives Don goods an additional chance to break into the national and, possibly, international markets,” officials say.

Nevertheless, officials could not help but react to the appeals of Don factory owners, and as a result, several times they gathered managers of hypermarkets to sternly ask why the share of Rostov goods on the shelves of Metro or, say, Ramstore in Rostov-on-Don does not exceed 5- -7%. Retailers, in turn, swore their sympathy for local manufacturers, the desire to increase their share in the assortment to 12-15%, or even 30%, but at the same time pointed out that the level of retail automation does not allow selling products without barcodes today, without proper packaging, without stability of supply and quality. “The transition from friendly, almost sincere cooperation with Rostov supermarkets to the ruthless reality of foreign standards turned out to be stunning,” admits Konstantin Ostapkevich, director of a Don company specializing in the production of semi-finished products. “Now the success of cooperation is determined not by good personal relationships between top managers of companies, but by the supplier’s satisfaction of all the network’s requests and the ability to provide huge discounts.” It was with the fulfillment of a standard set of retail requirements that the authorities of the Rostov region decided to help the Don commodity producers.

However, some Rostov factory owners still claim that the problem is not at all with quality and packaging, but with the fact that corruption allegedly flourishes in the chains and it is allegedly completely impossible for managers to get onto the shelves without bribes. But officials have an answer to this: “The more chains enter the Rostov region, the higher their competition will be, including for the inclusion in the assortment of those product items that the local population is accustomed to.”

To date, 15 Don commodity producers, mainly producing food products and textiles, have expressed their desire to participate in the subsidy program announced by Governor Vladimir Chub.

Larisa NIKITINA, Rostov-on-Don