Lights will be screwed on chandeliers – Newspaper Kommersant No. 1 (7446) dated 01/09/2023

Russian electronics manufacturers are asking the government to increase import duties on imported lighting equipment and components by an average of 10-15%. Such a move is intended to stimulate demand for domestic components: now, in the production of large batches, some market participants use not Russian, but cheaper Asian components. But even the domestic manufacturers of lighting equipment themselves differed in their assessments of the measure. On the one hand, they call the proposal “belated” and the level of tariff growth “insufficient.” On the other hand, they talk about the risk of large volumes of counterfeit and gray imports appearing on the market.

“Kommersant” got acquainted with the letter of the General Director of the Consortium Svetotekhnika (it includes 68 companies, including JSC Angstrem, JSC Orbita, etc.) Olga Grekova dated December 15 to the director of the department of the radio-electronic industry of the Ministry of Industry and Trade Yury Plyasunov. Ms. Grekova in her document proposes to increase import customs duties on imported lighting products and lighting components by an average of 10-15%. For example, duties on imported LED lamps could rise from zero to 5%, on plastic chandeliers from 12% to 20%, on LED medical chandeliers from 5% to 35%. In total, there are 106 items on the list for which it is proposed to increase duties (see table).

At the end of 2022, the Ministry of Industry and Trade itself invited industry consortia to send proposals to increase customs duties on a number of goods, interlocutors in the microelectronics market told Kommersant. The ministry told Kommersant that the appeal “will be considered in the prescribed manner.”

In 2022, Russian electronics manufacturers have already proposed several times to the government to introduce customs regulation measures to support domestic equipment manufacturers. In the fall, Aquarius Group of Companies, the Ministry of Digital Transformation, the Ministry of Industry and Trade and the Federal Customs Service discussed the idea of ​​increasing import duties on consumer electronics and computer equipment by 5% (see Kommersant of November 9 and December 28, 2022). They also discussed the ban on parallel imports of Dell, HP, HPE, Acer, MSI computers and laptops, analogues of which are assembled in Russia.

The Russian lighting market, explains Evgeny Dolin, GR director of IIC BL Group, is divided into three segments: street and industrial lighting, where about half of the market is occupied by Russian manufacturers; household lighting (chandeliers, table lamps), where Russian companies occupy about 10% of the market, and lamps of all kinds (LED, incandescent). In the last segment, according to Mr. Dolin, Russian companies occupy 2-3% of the domestic market. The annual turnover of each of the three segments is 50-55 billion rubles, the expert specifies. Among the largest manufacturers, he names PK Klever LLC, GS Group, TPK Varton and others.

Increasing duties on imported diodes can indeed potentially stimulate demand for Russian lighting components, admits Kommersant’s interlocutor in a major Russian component manufacturer. “Today, a number of medium and small manufacturers of lighting equipment produce a small batch of equipment with Russian components, receive a certificate confirming Russian origin and giving preferences on government purchases, and in the production of large batches they use not Russian, but cheaper Asian components, reducing the cost of products,” explains “Kommersant” source. “If we increase import duties on diodes, we will be able to equalize the price of Russian and Asian components and make this scheme, if not useless, then less profitable.”

At the same time, Sergey Mordavchenkov, Operations Director of TPK Varton (a Russian manufacturer of lamps and lighting equipment), calls the 10-15% increase in customs duties a “belated and insufficient” measure that will only lead to higher prices. “In order to stimulate the development and localization of production on the territory of the Russian Federation, an increase in the duty to at least 20% is required,” the top manager believes.

If such protective duties are introduced, then, most likely, a trade war with the Eurasian countries will begin, and the equipment that will be subject to additional duties will be imported through parallel imports, which will increase the volume of counterfeit goods on the market, Evgeny Dolin emphasizes: “Russian manufacturers will only be helped reduction of duties on the import of components and negotiations on a possible reduction in duties with countries of potential export.

Nikita Korolev, Timofey Kornev