Translated material
How to plug holes in cheeses
The sanctions war with the West undermined the Russian economy, but opened a window of opportunities for individual entrepreneurs. Here are some examples of a business that earned on sanctions, and its lobbyists who are interested in continuing and expanding prohibitions.
"The kick of this topic is given"
In 1994, the office of the American Software Corporation Oracle , the developer of the database management systems (DBMS), appeared in Russia, and by 2015 the corporation occupied a dominant position in the database segment. But since 2014, Oracle , like all American companies without exception, is prohibited from working with Uralvagonzavod, the Kalashnikov, Stroytransgaz concern, Russia Bank and other organizations that fell under US sanctions. In the case of Oracle , sanctions mean that these Russian companies cannot buy licenses and, more importantly, to receive technical support for an American developer - updates that cover errors and safety holes.
Oleg Bartunov, researcher at the State Astronomical Institute. Sternberg with 38 years of experience suggested a decision. For almost 20 years, he was a member of the Oracle alternative to the PostgreSQL database management system. It was created in the United States, but on a free license, it is developing a group of enthusiasts from around the world and does not have the owner. Since 2011, Bartunov has been actively promoting its use in Russian state denotations and enterprises.
PostgreSQL program code is open, anyone can use it for free. But in order to develop and finalize the system for the needs of specific users, high qualifications are needed. About three years, until December 2014, Bartunov tried to find an investor and create a Russian competency center for the development of DBMS. He turned to one of the state banks and to the Ministry of Communications, even wrote to the Minister Nikolai Nikiforov, talked with the State Fund for the Development of Internet Initiatives, with several private IT companies, including large -1C and ABBYY . The likelihood that Oracle will turn off the Security Patch , in his opinion, is high.
The State Duma Commission proposed to be considered domestic organizations, whose revenue by more than 75% is formed from sales within the country. This would not allow Russian companies such as “Kaspersky Laboratory” or Abbyy.
“Since 2011, I spoke with the same as now, spoke of high dependence on Oracle . They clapped me on the shoulder, but then it didn’t go further, ”says Bartunov. But from the beginning of the sanctions war, the situation began to change. In the "Niza", according to him, there was an interest in Postgres before, but now it has appeared among large officials and businessmen. In January, the team found an investor - they became Anton Sushkevich, one of the founders of the Envizhn Group system integrator (in early 2014, he finally sold his AFK System). Partners registered the Postrres Professional (PP) company and offered potential customers - departments and state -owned companies who are more at the risk of sanctions - as Bartunov says, “understandable scheme”: “You buy a license - buy support”. The affairs of the PP went uphill. It got to the point that in February 2015 a conference dedicated to Postgres was organized by the company was received by the Minister of Communications Nikiforov, who said: “ PostgreSQL DBMS is the most important tool in the current import substitution policy.”
“Now we have become big businessmen,” says Bartunov, who took the post of CEO of PP. Among those who showed interest in his services, he calls VTB, the Russian Federal Nuclear Center from Sarov, belonging to Rostoch, the company National Information and Settlement Systems. If the plans of Bartunov and his partners are implemented and the contracts will not break, the company plans to earn several million dollars in 2015 - in any case, another native of the Astronomical Institute and one of the co -founders of PP Ivan Panchenko stated.
In June, the Bartunov team took first place in the selection of the Ministry of Communications for financing domestic projects for import substitution of software (in the DBMS category), ahead of the consortium, which proposed to develop the Russian Linter system, which was in demand mainly to the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the Ministry of Defense.
To support several teams - developers of critical products, the Ministry plans to allocate 18 billion rubles. “Why did we go to the Ministry of Communications of the Ministry of Communications? - argues the director "PP". - Additional financing will not hurt us. Plus this is a certain state roof. Supporting the ministry means that the kick is given to this topic. All officials see this and begin to move. ”
“We play according to the rules of the state, but at the same time try to distance ourselves from it. Opensource is primarily the transparency of the development, ”he adds.
Lobibists also activated. For example, over the past year, the number of members of the Domestic Soft Association, which is engaged in the promotion of Russian developers, has been doubled: now there are 80 of them in associations. “We have actively participated in the fact that measures to support the domestic software under public procurement have been developed,” says Yevgeny Vasilenko, the head of the association. The law in question provides for the creation of a single register of Russian software, moreover, there are plans since 2016 to give preference to Russian software at public procurement.
Under the auspices of the state, we need many years of work aimed at educating patriotism, the formation of the moral qualities of market participants.
Another structure that has taken over lobbying functions is the State Duma Commission on the development of strategic information systems. It is headed by a deputy from the Communist Party Dmitry Novikov, and the CEO of the IT company Cognitive Technologies Andrey Chernogorov, the son of the founder and president, is working as a secretary secretary. Cognitive Olga Oskova (according to Tadviser.ru). The commission advocates more stringent restrictions on foreigners in the Russian IT market. For example, the commission proposed to be considered domestic and in the future claiming state support for the organization, whose revenue is more than 75% formed from sales within the country. Which would not allow Russian companies such as “Kaspersky Laboratory” or Abbyy to Russian. In addition, the State Duma Commission proposed to ban the supply of companies that do not work in the Crimea to the Russian public sector, that is, all American and European. So far, the commission has not achieved serious success.
Up, the adopted law on the register of domestic software and the prepared decree of the government on the ban on foreign software if there are Russian analogues are insufficient: “Even the most carefully worked out legislative documents have loopholes for certain categories of market participants. In this sense, under the auspices of the state, we need serious many years of work aimed at educating patriotism, the formation of moral qualities of market participants and representatives of state authority. After all, if, for example, Japan citizens to choose national products and foreign products, then we can say with certainty that, even despite the insignificant difference in quality and price, they, like patriots, will stop at their own product. ”
The State Duma Commission and other parallel structures is just working on a new package of amendments, which primarily concern federal procurement laws (223 and 44). Applications of tender participants are evaluated by price, quality and qualifications. At the same time, Up proposes to give Russian developers more points by default according to the criterion of “qualification”.
But even without the introduction of restrictions for foreigners, Up, fixes the growth of demand for the services of his company. “It can be estimated at 30-35%. In this sense, our officials have some insight about the instability of interaction with foreign suppliers IT . ” For example, in St. Petersburg a unified system of public procurement and state order management developed, developed by Cognitive , was organized. According to Skhletova, "before that she was based on Oracle and Microsoft technology."
Rawders emit optimism
Last year, 37-year-old Andrei Primitsky from Samara worked as a regional sales manager. Now he is brewing nine types of cheese under the Andreev Cheese brand. Among them are Mozarella, Ricotta, Kachotta, Mascarpone, Suluguni and Halumi. He opened the case in December, when a shortage of imported soft cheeses was already felt on the shelves.
The average price of Andreev Cheese is 550-600 rubles. per kilogram, Ricotta - 450 rubles each. At first, the monthly turnover did not exceed 10 thousand rubles. At the end of December, Zamytskiy conducted a tasting of his Adyghe and Russian cheeses in a natural product store, acquired new customers, and demand grew. Today is a monthly turnover - 200 thousand rubles. Zamytskiy, as he wanted, moved to the village and independently built a cheese man, looking for professional equipment.
In connection with the sanctions, the rawds, Primetsky admits, radiate optimism: “All familiar cheese people say that the restrictions helped. And I myself understand: the fact that they were extended for another year is a big plus, during this time you can get on your feet so that when the cheeses appear from Europe, this will not affect me. ” Over the next six months, he plans to increase the turnover by 3-5 times. Now Zamytskiy is taking certification and actively offers cheeses to local restaurants. He does not plan to cooperate with grocery networks - his business will not pull the entrance fee of 100 thousand rubles for the position.
“All sales with us are on the end consumer, a person orders VKontakte, writes the address, and the courier transports a specific order to the homes,” the Zamytsk scheme explains. A year later, he plans to participate in a grant competition up to 1.5 million rubles. Young farmers for the development of agriculture, plans - the industrial production of Kamamber, which disappeared from store shelves. Problems with the manufacture of cheese with mold, he says, no. Difficulty - in the absence of rooms for storing cheese, which matures 21 days.
According to the executive director of the Russian Union of the Dairy Industry (RSPMO), Lyudmila Manitskaya, Russian counter -sanctions positively affected not only small, but also in large enterprises in the food sector: “There was an increase of up to 60%of the processing of milk and the region, depending on the region”.
As in the case of the IT industry, leading players in the dairy industry are trying to maintain a favorable mode of work for themselves. RSPMO and the National Union of Milk manufacturers (Soyuzmoloko) actively lobbying for the extension of the embargo. The connections of organizations in government agencies help promote their interests. Former Executive Director of RSPMO Vladimir Labinov is now heading the Livestock Department of the Ministry of Agriculture. Soyuzmolok President Ayrat Khairullin is the first deputy chairman of the State Duma Committee on Agrarian issues. The brother of the official Ilshat Khairullin owns one of the largest dairy holdings in Russia, Red East Agro OJSC.
Soyuzmolok already managed to close a loophole for lactose dairy products, under the guise of which prohibited cheeses were taken to Russia. The signals about this was the industry association was given to the Ministry of Agriculture, Rosselkhoznadzor, Rospotrebnadzor and FCS. In addition, both unions have repeatedly expressed claims to the quality of dairy products from Ukraine and achieved from Rosprirodnadzor the suspension of the import of Ukrainian cheeses into Russia. Now the Soyuzmolok has a new project: the organization lobbies the introduction of imported duties on dairy products and quotas for the supply of palm oil - such proposals contains the Union directed by the Ministry of Agriculture “The Program for the Development of the Military Industry until 2020”.
Kamamber from the factory
For example, the Kuban Kaloria plant (Kaloria LLC, Kanevsky district of the Krasnodar Territory) took advantage of the same lack of elite imported dairy products. The company began to produce cheeses with mold back in 2007, but they reached the metropolitan supermarket only with the introduction of the embargo. Now the Kuban-Plezir with white mold and three more types of cheese that taste like BRA and CAMAMBER can be bought in the metropolitan grocery networks “Crossroads”, “Auchan”, “Scarlet Sails” and other supermarkets. According to Tatyana Saint, the head of the company, Calory is the only enterprise in Russia for the production of cheeses with mold on a factory scale.
Before the reciprocal measures, demand was small: “Previously, we realized less than three tons, there was no great interest to cheeses with mold. Our plant is located in rural areas, and only thanks to the sanctions did we have the opportunity to expand the presence, ”says the Saint. In 2013, the company's revenue, according to the SPARK base, amounted to 1.4 billion rubles, in 2014 increased to 1.8 billion rubles. The rest of the assortment - butter, milk, baby cocktails, dairy products - was financially not as successful as cheeses. The main regions of marketing remain Volgograd, Astrakhan, Rostov regions, Abkhazia and Kazakhstan.
In general, after the imposition of sanctions, 75% of the total assortment in Russian retail chains are occupied by Russian cheeses, reports Maria Kournosova, director of external communications “Auchan Russia”. The main competitors of domestic cheeses are manufacturers from Belarus, Argentina, Serbia, Uruguay, Switzerland, Armenia. But, according to her, Russian cheeses win in price.
“Kuban-Plezir” with white mold and three more types of cheese that taste like BRA and CAMAMBER.
“After the embargo, the assortment of cheeses has been significantly reduced, but now we are actively introducing new positions. We brought a number of regional suppliers from Rostov-on-Don and Voronezh to the federal level. The most quickly Russian raw -dumplings were able to find a replacement for yellow cheeses - in particular, “Russian” and “Kostroma,” says Kournosova. “The task remains to find suitable suppliers for the production of soft cheese and cheese with blue mold.”
According to Rosstat, the volume of production of cheeses and cheese products in Russia last year amounted to more than 494 thousand tons, 114.1%showed the growth rate compared to 2013. In terms of production of solid cheese, the leaders became Tatarstan, Voronezh, Rostov regions and Perm Territory. In 2014, this indicator increased by 25.4% in relation to 2013. In the category of melted cheeses, the growth for 2014 amounted to 8.3%, the first to be the Moscow, Ryazan, Bryansk and Yaroslavl regions.
Andrei Sizov, Executive Director of the Analytical Center of the Russian Agrarian markets “SOECON”, explains that the production of cheese is almost the only example in the food industry, when the embargo pushed enterprises to increase production. In agriculture, he believes, after the introduction of the sanctions, the case went much worse: the cost of borrowings has increased sharply, most projects in animal husbandry are frozen, with the parent herd and the purchase of equipment of the problem.
Retrints: Boomerang effect
The growth of Russian goods primarily affected the consumer segment, says economist Mikhail Dmitriev, - food industry, chemistry, cosmetics, drugs, some building materials and household goods. According to his estimates, imports fell by 40%, part of the demand was replaced by internal production. But in the field of textile industry and mass production of shoes, serious import substitution should not be expected (more about this - in an interview with an economist ).
The former head of the Ministry of Finance, chairman of the civil initiative committee, Alexei Kudrin, believes that the Russian response embargo is beating in Russian economics much more than counterparties. In a crisis, the scale of the capabilities of Russian enterprises is sharply reduced - this applies to financing and access to technology, he says. The sanctions were able to bring benefits to individual enterprises, but this happened against the background of an average worsening economy. “It turns out that prices have risen, Russian companies have become more competitive. But the costs in these sectors increased, the average production efficiency has worsened, that is, the same result is large costs. We have more production, it has become less effective, labor productivity has decreased, ”Kudrin is convinced.
According to the economist Sergei Aleksashenko, the government is currently not at all in the overall import substitution strategy: “Domestic goods must replace imports and defeat competition in the domestic market, but for some reason not on the external one. Some kind of inconsistent. The best way to carry out import substitution is to make a product competitive for the whole world, then it will definitely be in demand within the country. Either you produce some kind of product and it wins the market, or you do something by order-and the government helps you partially close the market. In the USSR there was a car called “Zhiguli”, produced until recently. We believed that this was a good car until we found out that there were others. The same with import substitution. But if the government closes the borders - then we will probably be happy with what is. ”
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