Deputy Minister in question – Kommersant

According to Kommersant, the Ministry of Digital Development is discussing the resignation of Deputy Minister Andrei Zarenin. If this happens, Kommersant’s sources say, the chair could be taken by the deputy head of the secretariat of Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Chernyshenko, Fyodor Kroshin. Participants in the electronics market, which was supervised by the deputy minister, are not too happy about the prospect of resignation. They claim that it was Mr. Zarenin who managed to “establish interaction” between the Ministry of Digital Development and the industry and achieve its support, including preferential lending. In addition, the industry fears that the ministry as a whole will lose its powers to regulate electronics, which it currently shares with the Ministry of Industry and Trade.

According to two Kommersant interlocutors among Russian electronics manufacturers, Deputy Head of the Ministry of Digital Development Andrei Zarenin may leave his post by the end of the year. The fact that the official’s resignation is being discussed was also heard by a top manager of one of the largest IT holdings, a former employee of the Ministry of Digital Development and one of the current officials of the ministry. A high-ranking interlocutor of Kommersant in the government clarified that “there is a discussion on the issue, but there is no decision yet.” The Ministry of Digital Development declined to comment; Mr. Zarenin did not answer Kommersant’s questions.

Andrei Zarenin was appointed to the position of deputy minister in May 2021, he headed the department for stimulating demand for radio-electronic products, which was then created in the Ministry of Digital Development. Before that, he managed to work in both private and government agencies: after graduating from MIPT in 2004 and until 2013 – at VimpelCom, then until 2019 – at the Federal State Unitary Enterprise Research Institute Voskhod, subordinate to the Ministry of Communications, from 2019 to 2020 – Advisor to the Presidential Administration, in 2020-2021 – Deputy Director of the Government Information Technology Department.

At the Ministry of Digital Development, Mr. Zarenin was involved in regulating the market together with the Department of Radio Electronics of the Ministry of Industry and Trade according to the “two keys” rule, when regulations must be agreed upon in both structures (see “Kommersant” dated July 8, 2022). After the arrest in the summer of 2023 of the Deputy Head of the Ministry of Digital Development Maxim Parshin, who headed the department for development of the information technology industry (regulating the software market), Mr. Zarenin also performed his duties.

One of the key initiatives for the electronics market, implemented by Andrei Zarenin, the companies call the launch in the spring of 2022 of a mechanism for preferential lending to radio electronics manufacturers – it allowed large manufacturers to receive cheap money to replenish warehouses with electronic components. Recipients of loans included, for example, the companies Aquarius and Yadro. However, since November of this year, banks began to increase preferential rates on such loans due to the exhaustion of limits on rate compensation (see Kommersant of November 3).

Among the never-implemented plans, Kommersant’s interlocutors in the IT market mention the mechanism of “end-to-end projects.” It involves compensating customers for 50% of the costs of purchasing Russian electronics. Formally, this mechanism began working in the fall of 2021 after the approval of Resolution No. 1619, but after the outbreak of hostilities in Ukraine, the possibility of implementing these support measures was in question, and in fact, not a single customer received funding for their projects.

A top manager of a large IT holding, a former employee of the Ministry of Digital Development, as well as a Kommersant source in a large electronics manufacturer, name Fedor Kroshin, the current deputy head of the secretariat of Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Chernyshenko, as a potential candidate to replace Mr. Zarenin. The Deputy Prime Minister’s office did not respond to Kommersant’s request. Mr. Kroshin graduated from the Novosibirsk State University of Telecommunications and Informatics in 2014, until 2019 he headed the corporate sales office of the Huawei Tech Company in the Siberian Federal District, and then until 2021 he served as the executive director of Rostec – Design Technologies JSC.

“Considering that from the moment of his appointment, Zarenin established interaction between the ministry both with the industry and with the Ministry of Industry and Trade, and was also able, under the conditions of sanctions, to quickly develop and approve initiatives that support manufacturers of computer equipment, his departure from the ministry raises concerns among the industry,” emphasizes Kommersant’s interlocutor on the IT market. In his opinion, there is also a risk that the Ministry of Digital Development will simply lose its powers in terms of regulating the electronics market.

Nikita Korolev