Cooperation with the EAEU is being put into practice – Newspaper Kommersant No. 175 (7376) of 09/22/2022

The Eurasian Economic Commission (EEC) proposed to the Russian government to develop an interstate program for the development of the semiconductor industry in the countries of the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU). The EEC has prepared proposals for financing the project, citing as an example the development of microelectronics in the EU and the USA, for which €43 billion and $52 billion have been allocated, respectively. But experts and participants in the Russian market doubt that the initiative will be effective: there is almost no semiconductor production in the EAEU countries. In their opinion, China remains the only option for a base for the development of Russian electronics.

“Kommersant” got acquainted with the letter of the Chairman of the Board of the EEC of the Eurasian Economic Union Mikhail Myasnikovich dated September 9 to the head of the Ministry of Industry and Trade and Deputy Prime Minister Denis Manturov with the idea to initiate the development of an interstate program for the development of the semiconductor industry in the member countries of the EAEU (Russia, Belarus, Armenia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan) . The EEC, writes Mr. Myasnikovich, has prepared proposals for financing industrial projects and plans to submit them to the intergovernmental council in the fourth quarter. “The development of the semiconductor industry should be positioned as one of the projects – symbols of Eurasian integration,” Mikhail Myasnikovich believes, suggesting that Mr. Manturov, in case of support, “give instructions to the authorized bodies.”

Mr. Myasnikovich emphasizes that the European Union and the United States have already “intensified work on the development of microelectronics”, announcing plans to invest €43 billion and $52 billion, respectively, in the semiconductor industry. Sources of Kommersant in the government say that the Ministry of Industry and Trade sent a letter for study to the Ministry of Digital Development, the Ministry of Finance, the Ministry of Economy, Roscosmos and Rosatom. The Ministry of Industry and Trade and Roscosmos received a letter and are “considering the proposal.” Rosatom, the Ministry of Digital Transformation and the Ministry of Economy did not respond to Kommersant.

Meanwhile, the Russian authorities have not yet approved even their own strategy for the development of the industry: only in September, the Ministry of Industry and Trade developed the “Fundamentals of the State Policy of the Russian Federation in the field of development of the electronic industry for the period up to 2030”. The document confirms a number of industry problems, including a 15-year lag behind global leaders and a critical dependence on foreign software and materials (see Kommersant on September 13). At the same time, the Ministry of Industry and Trade, fearing the re-labeling of Western equipment, proposed changes in the summer to allow state purchases of computer equipment from the union, only if it is localized there, with the definition of criteria according to a point system (see Kommersant of July 18).

Maxim Koposov, director of Promobit (produces servers and storage systems based on Russian Elbrus processors), considers cooperation with the EAEU in the development of semiconductor production to be promising. According to him, there are research and production enterprises in Belarus capable of producing products “of a level corresponding to the Russian one”, and design centers and independent distributors operate in Armenia. In Kyrgyzstan, the top manager added, the industry is also in the focus of the government, “as evidenced by the international conferences held there.”

The interlocutor of Kommersant in the semiconductor market confirms that there are specialized enterprises in Belarus, in particular, the Integral holding: “But this is a rather old production that operates on outdated topologies up to 600 nm, there are software developers for electronics design in Armenia, but in other countries of the EAEU, there is virtually no industry.” The Kommersant source adds that theoretically, the EAEU countries could be used as channels for the supply of equipment and electronics, the import of which is prohibited by sanctions into Russia: “But in reality this is impossible. When supplying materials for the production of semiconductors, the customer must indicate the final recipient, and this should not be an empty LLC, but a specialized enterprise.

Nikolai Komlev, Executive Director of the Association of Computer and Information Technology Enterprises (APKIT), believes that the EEC initiative is correct, but “under sanctions, any real cooperation should be non-public and between manufacturers, and not at the level of state boards and other public structures.” Yaroslav Petrichkovich, the founder of the Elvis Design Center, doubts that the initiative will bring results: “Microelectronics in the EAEU countries is weak, rather absent, so the only country that can help Russia has been and remains China.”

Nikita Korolev, Timofey Kornev