Mandatory shelves for Russian goods to appear in supermarkets

Their nomenclature and volume will be determined by the Ministry of Industry and Trade

In the 40th year of endless economic reforms, retail chains will create special shelves for Russian-made non-food products. Indeed, supermarkets are located on Russian soil, using our resources, and there is no way for a domestic manufacturer of pants or boots to get there. We need special regiments and a law so that by waving it we can win our place under the sun.

The State Duma and the Ministry of Industry and Trade have decided on the criteria for Russian products, which must be on sale without fail. At the first stage, we are talking about non-food products with high added value. Even the concept of “goods of Russian origin” is introduced. Now retail chains will be required to create special shelves for them. As today, let’s say, in many CUs “farm corners” have been formed, which are also of Russian origin.

The list and share of such products will be determined by the Ministry of Industry and Trade. It is reported that the list will include furniture and household goods, toys, motor oils, spare parts, cosmetics and more.

The bill was designed to “increase the competitiveness of Russian consumer goods and accelerate the technological development of the country.” Rospotrebnadzor will have to control the range and volumes.

The position of the government is correct in all respects. Imports have suffocated us. It is gratifying that years later we remember the domestic manufacturer. But still I would like to ask the statesmen: where were they before, when at the beginning of perestroika the domestic industry was being destroyed? After all, family shorts were also produced in sufficient quantities in the USSR. But for some reason we began to wear them of Turkish and Chinese tailoring.

How much time will we need to resuscitate Russian production? And what will be the quality?

In the production of cosmetics and perfumes in 2022, Russia recorded a record reduction in imports by 41%. Not because the products have become competitive at the global level. Large Western brands left our market and seriously reduced their production.

According to the head of the Ministry of Industry and Trade Denis Manturov, in the next three years, domestic production of these products in Russia will grow by 2-3 times. There will be something to please buyers, although ladies have questions about the price and quality of cosmetics.

For toys, the situation is more complicated: we are heavily dependent on suppliers – in 2021, we imported about 1.5 billion plush hares and bears, more than 1 billion from China. True, here you don’t have to bother about quality – what do kids understand in it?

With other consumer goods, under which it is planned to take the shelves in supermarkets, it will be more difficult. So, today 75% of clothes are imported from other countries: 40% – from China, 10% – from Bangladesh, 8% – from Vietnam and a little more than 6% – from Turkey. The situation is similar with shoes. 50%, of course, from China, followed by Vietnam, Italy, Turkey…

But what does it cost us during the period of “nuclear sanctions” to announce another shock construction site like the BAM or the turn of the Siberian rivers? Will the economy pull the general import substitution or will the next hatred over time remain on paper?

According to experts, in these attempts we shy away from side to side. About 20 years ago, Russia adopted a state program for the development of domestic aircraft and shipbuilding. These industries have been identified as growth points. Developing them “from scratch and on a turnkey basis” on the basis of modern materials and technologies, the country’s economy would receive hundreds of thousands of new jobs. After all, other industries would follow suit. We would assemble modern liners not as Mercedes (screwdriver production), but in a full cycle.

Growth points were quietly and unobtrusively forgotten. Now at the same time “here and now” we want to accelerate and switch to domestic goods. The agrarian circles are sounding the alarm about this, where the concept of an urgent refusal to use imported seeds has been developed – we are hastily developing domestic seed production.

Everyone understands that our home-grown seeds at first will be much inferior to imported ones in terms of yield and disease resistance. But in order to interest the peasants in switching to domestic planting material, bonuses were invented. The farms will be allocated preferential loans and subsidies, and other benefits will be provided. Apparently, now we have to come up with bonuses for domestic cosmetics.