The idea of technological and food independence of Russia is not new at all and appeared in our life not only with the emergence of new territories on the map of the country. The authors of this idea were hardly even dismissed, but by default we simply sold raw materials, and having foreign currency proceeds, we bought what we needed from those who did it better and cheaper than us. Cars, food, medicine, airplanes. I think that most people making real political decisions did not consider the idea of restrictions to be even remotely feasible. But Crimea and the mutual sanctions that followed made the scaremongering a reality. We have been living in the new format of the old idea for five years now, and we can summarize the results.
For entrepreneurs, the current situation is ambiguous. On the one hand, difficulties with the supply of technology have begun to appear. Fortunately, for the time being, this applies to a small set of niches such as offshore drilling. I chose this example on purpose. It seems that we are talking about the raw materials, at the expense of which the country lives, but at the same time there is no significant harm from this restriction here and now - the main production for many years to come will be carried out in the old continental oil-bearing provinces of Western Siberia, the Volga region, and the new provinces of Eastern Siberia. It turns out that there are sanctions, but there is no harm - there is a certain warning.
But who can guarantee that the process will not be escalating? For example, there are already obvious problems with attracting long-term financing, which is much worse. On the other hand, there are market niches freed from imported goods and prospects for the development of domestic production. Investors are faced with a dilemma - whether to risk money by directing it to expanding domestic production and replacing imported goods, or to traditionally recognize that we have the most correct reaction to any event - export of capital - and continue this worthy occupation.
Conditions for success Let's look at what needs to happen for investment in expanding domestic production to be massively conceptualized. So that it turns from the incantations of officials broadcast in the media into a real trend of entrepreneurial activity.
А. Investments in domestic production, especially in production where yesterday there was a strong external competitor, presuppose at least the existence of a sufficiently large domestic market for this particular product. And here it does not matter whether we are talking about the consumer market or production of goods for business.
Б. It is assumed at least a sufficient margin of time to roll out new production.
В. Financial resources in the form of bank loans (for no large project is made only with the funds of shareholders).
Г. Some possibility of government support for the project (subsidies, soft loans, guarantees, creation of infrastructure, etc.).
Д. A well-developed labor market that can provide new production facilities with specialists of sufficient qualification.
Е. Availability of technologies and components for new production.
I admit that it is possible to add some more significant conditions, but the above mentioned ones are enough for me to consider the stated topic. What do we have for each of them?
We objectively do not have a domestic market comparable in scale to China, India, the USA or the European Union. Yes, our population is still certainly richer than Indians, but the comparison with China is already in question (at least in the Russian province). And most importantly, our population is an order of magnitude smaller, and modern manufacturing is competitive precisely on large volumes. This is especially well manifested in technically complex products with a long development period and high costs to launch production in series. Modern automobiles, airplanes, medicines - all this pays off only if there are huge sales markets. So, either we are doomed to consume goods much more expensive than our neighbors, or we must be sure that we can elbow serious competitors and export complex technological products.
The truth of life Just as sanctions were unexpectedly imposed (we mean Russian sanctions against Western manufacturers), they can be lifted just as unexpectedly. No investor can be sure not only that his import substitution project will pay off in time, but that it will even be built before the government decides to lift the sanctions.
This is a very important point - uncertainty about the time of existence of this or that goods admission regime. After all, it takes a year or two to prepare project documentation for a large production facility, a couple or three more years for construction, and another year to set up the equipment and reach planned volumes. The total is five or six years, and this is quite optimistic. The payback period for the industrial project will be another five to ten years from the start of commercial operation. As a consequence, in order to make a serious investment decision, it would be good to forecast the situation 15 years ahead. Who among us has such opportunities?