Rosstat has approved its methodology for calculating the share of the creative economy in the Russian Federation’s GDP

Rosstat has approved the methodology for calculating the domestic value added (GVA) of the creative economy and its share in GDP. The annual measurement of indicators will cover the period from 2017 – the department has already presented estimates for 2017–2022. Thus, according to Rosstat calculations, the contribution of creative industries to GDP in 2022 amounted to 3.2% – this is noticeably higher than the previous estimate of the Institute for Statistical Research and Economics of Knowledge (ISSEK) of the National Research University Higher School of Economics – 2.64% – and will simplify the White House’s task of increasing the contribution of the creative economy to GDP to 6% by 2030. Statistically, this is the result of the inclusion of gastronomy in the “creative industries” with a fairly high weight – experts call this approach controversial, but acceptable.

Rosstat has approved the methodology for calculating the internal value added (IVA) of the creative economy and its share in the Russian Federation’s GDP – the order is posted on the department’s website. The methodology is based on international recommendations developed by Eurostat, the World Intellectual Property Organization, the OECD, the UN, and the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD). The grouping of types of “creative” economic activity includes more than 50 types of business according to OKVED-2 (from tailoring underwear to individual orders to the activities of composers), covering 13 industries. These are architecture and urban planning, design, fashion, cinema and animation products, music and sound design, cultural and entertainment and literary publishing industries, fine and visual arts, software, games and toys, advertising and communications, media , journalism and gastronomy. The annual calculation of indicators will be carried out starting in 2017; estimates for periods up to 2022 have already been presented. Thus, in 2017-2018, the share of the creative economy was 2.8% of GDP, in 2019 – 3% of GDP, in 2020-2022 – 3.2%. Previously, ISSEK NRU HSE assessed the contribution of creative industries to the Russian GDP in 2022 at 2.64%. The White House expects that state support for creative industries will gradually increase their share in GDP to 6% by 2030 (see Kommersant of October 9, 2023 and September 28, 2021).

ISSEK notes that their calculations are generally close to the pilot calculations of Rosstat, based on the classifier of types of economic activities for creative businesses approved by the Ministry of Culture. HSE experts participated in its development, notes the director of the center “Russian Cluster Observatory” of ISSEK Evgeniy Kutsenko, specifying that “being the result of a compromise, it has some features that distinguish it both from the classifier that we usually use in our research, and from already textbook classifier of the Department of Culture, Media and Sport of Great Britain.” In particular, in the “creative economy” of Rosstat, the IT sphere is somewhat narrowed (software publishing is excluded from it), but industries such as toy production and gastronomy are added. ISSEK notes that publishing software is similar in economic function to film distribution, book publishing and the activities of art galleries, which are included in the Rosstat classifier. However, gastronomy turned out to be the third most important component in the “creative economy” according to Rosstat (12% of the total result, IT – 28%, advertising – 16%). However, experts admit that it is difficult to distinguish between gastronomy and public catering and its inclusion in the assessment is a controversial idea, but acceptable; ISSEK does not see any practical point in further refining the methodology, proposing instead to focus on providing regions with timely and reliable data on the dynamics of “creative” industries for their adequate support.

Estimating the size of the creative economy has always caused disagreements among experts, notes Viktor Bryzgalin, a member of the Faculty of Economics at Moscow State University. For example, the Agency for Strategic Initiatives estimated it at just under 5% of GDP in 2021, while the HSE estimated it at 2.2%. This was due, among other things, to the lack of certainty about what types of economic activities can be classified as “creative,” he explains. The adopted legal acts form the state’s position on this issue, the expert notes.

According to the director of the Center for Development of the Creative Economy of the ASI, Ekaterina Cherkes-zade, the development of a methodology is an important step for the formation of a long-term strategy for the development of creative industries; it will allow systematically measuring results and optimizing plans. Let us recall that among the problems of the development of the sector as a whole in the Russian Federation, experts named the lack of simple, obvious and cross-cutting criteria for recognizing companies in the creative sector for all sectors of the economy and the uneven inclusion of regions in its development and commercialization – in particular, the absence of a separate group of codes in OKVED for creative business did not allow the authorities to fully understand which industries need government support.

Venera Petrova