The contribution of creative industries to the Moscow economy exceeded 9%

Moscow forms two-thirds of the country’s creative economy, providing 65% of the gross added value of the creative industries of the Russian Federation, HSE experts have calculated. In 2022, the contribution of the capital’s creative sector to the gross regional product exceeded 9% – this share is three times greater than the all-Russian share of creative industries in GDP.

Last year, the gross value added (GVA) of Moscow’s creative industries (IT and video games, advertising, television and radio broadcasting, architecture and design, publishing, performing arts and music, cinema and animation, museums, libraries, archives, cultural heritage) reached 2.4 trillion rubles The capital provided 64.6% of the GVA of creative industries throughout Russia (RUB 3.7 trillion), according to a report prepared by the Institute for Statistical Research and Economics of Knowledge (ISSEK) of the National Research University Higher School of Economics together with the capital’s Department of Entrepreneurship and Innovative Development and the Agency for Creative Industries. For comparison, in general, Moscow’s share of Russian GDP is much smaller – 20%.

The contribution of the creative sector to the gross regional product of the capital is 9.1%, and it is growing steadily; in 2019 the figure was 7.4%. Over the past three years, the growth of added value in the capital’s creative sector has exceeded 23% in constant prices. At the same time, almost 70% of the sector’s contribution comes from three industries: IT, video games and advertising.

The number of workers in the creative economy of Moscow in 2022 is 1.2 million people. This is 14.3% of all employed in the capital and 26.4% in the creative economy in the country as a whole. 739 thousand people work directly in the creative industries (in particular, in music, design, video game creation), the remaining 464 thousand people represent creative professions in other industries (for example, IT and advertising specialists in the financial sector or designers in industry ).

The authors of the report explain Moscow’s predominant role in the sector not only by the “metropolis factor”, but also by the success of the city’s policy to support creative businesses. Director of the Center “Russian Cluster Observatory” of ISSEK Evgeniy Kutsenko notes that Moscow’s competitiveness in comparison with other global talent centers will largely depend on new technologies aimed at growing commercial demand and mass implementation of technologies in the industry, the main one of which is IT. Architecture and design, fashion, cinema and animation also have significant potential.

Note that in general for Russia, the government aims to increase the share of the creative economy to 6% of GDP by 2030 (from 2.4% in 2019), and the share of those employed in it from 4.7% to 15%. These are indicators from the Concept for the Development of Creative Industries in the Russian Federation, approved back in 2021 (see “Kommersant” dated September 28, 2021). In the meantime, the situation in the Russian Federation has changed slightly – as ISSEK told Kommersant, in 2022 the contribution of creative industries to Russia’s GDP was 2.64%, and the share of the creative economy in the number of employed in the Russian Federation was 6.3%.

Among the problems in the development of the sector as a whole in Russia, experts cite the lack of simple, obvious and cross-cutting criteria for recognizing companies in the creative sector and the uneven inclusion of regions in its development and commercialization of its results. The absence of a separate group of codes in the all-Russian classifier of types of economic activities for creative businesses does not allow the authorities to fully understand which creative industries need state support.

Venera Petrova