Digitalization of the whole country

How the system of total tracking of trade is introduced in Russia and who earns this

The electronic system for tracking and labeling of goods launched in Russia in test mode several years ago will become mandatory in 2019. It is planned that since July it will spread to shoes and tobacco products, and from December - to some types of clothes, tires, cameras, perfumes, kitchen and bedding. By 2024, the authorities plan to cover with marking all the main commodity groups in the country.

Technologically, the system is a radio frequency chip or QR code, when scanning of which you can get detailed information about the product (unique identifier, manufacturer, product code, movement routes, composition, etc.). Supporters call the widespread introduction of electronic marks a revolution for the consumer sector comparable to the advent of GPS navigation in transport.

If earlier, manufacturers and trading retail when planning were focused on belated and not always accurate data, now they will have a detailed map of the movement of goods throughout the country from the factory to the counter at their disposal. For modern trade working at huge speeds, this is an important competitive advantage.

But the main beneficiaries of digital tracking of goods are expected to become consumers. According to the authorities, the main goal of an experiment with labeling is to reduce the share of illegal goods. Electronic marks will clean the market from counterfeit products and “gray” imports. Each buyer will be able to trace the origin of the goods by pressing a couple of buttons on the smartphone.

You can see almost the type of feed that your steak ate during his life.

In a word, by 2024, the Russian trade sector will have a complete digital transformation.

Such a cloudless picture can be formed if the statements of the leadership of the Center for Development of Promising Technologies (Central Department of Construction and Entities) - a single operator of the digital marking system of goods. 50% of the CRPT belongs to the USM Holdings Alisher Usmanov and his partners, 25% of another state corporation Rostec and the manager of Almaz Capital, Alexander Galitsky.

But in reality, the business took this progressive initiative in hostility, since the score for the implementation of the system was issued to him. The purchase of expensive equipment and software for reading marks can cost from hundreds of thousands to several million euros - depending on the scale of production. The authorities expect that the legalization of the market will increase the profit of conscientious companies and allow them to compensate for costs. The share of illegal turnover of goods in different sectors exceeds 2 trillion rubles - it would seem that a significant source of undivided taxes for the state and potential profit for companies. Unfortunately, this effect will not work far in all cases.

Firstly, many consumers of cheap counterfeit goods will not be ready to switch to original products, which are several times more expensive. Secondly, the state actively expands the commodity groups to be labeling, even if there is no reason for this. On Monday, Vedomosti learned about the order of Dmitry Medvedev to increase the list almost twice, adding finished products from meat and fish there, bachelor, household appliances, baby food, vegetable oils, household chemicals, cosmetics, and soft drinks.

The fur coats, from which the experiment began in 2016, were selected quite reasonably: these are expensive products with a high share of counterfeit. The first pilot projects were really successful and significantly reduced illegal turnover.

But what worked for a fur coat and black caviar may not work for everyday goods, among which the percentage of fakes is small, and the risks for safety are low. Several industry associations, in particular, representatives of the perfume and light industry, have already warned that they would be forced to increase prices for consumers, and the labeling would not help the fight against counterfeit.

The desire of the government at all costs to cover as many goods as possible, regardless of costs, can only be explained by the interests of the contractors. CRPT (selected, by the way, without a competition) will receive 50 kopecks from each unit of tracking goods. At the same time, the state will not participate in the costs of developing a system (more than 200 billion rubles).

Perhaps the main goal of the largest Russian “IT-oligarch” Alisher Usmanov is not at all operating profit from marking, but the creation of a single database on trade throughout the country.

According to The Bell, the CRPT claimed exclusive access to data collected by the system. However, the government promises not to discriminate against other companies.

However, even if the CRPT monopoly on the data is limited, the current development trend of public-private partnership in Russia causes serious concerns. This is not the first time the Federal Tax Service has been transferring the right to collect mandatory payments to commercial organizations close to the country's leadership (recall the operator of the charge system from the Plato trucks). Russia, undoubtedly, is one of the world leaders in the introduction of advanced practices in the field of digitalization of everything related to taxes. But in symbiosis with the medieval institute, these practices give a very strange result.