“The departure of Western companies with which we worked is pure politics”

Inventive Retail Group is the largest Russian partner of Apple, Samsung, Lego, Nike, who announced their withdrawal from the Russian market. But, despite this, the company managed to remain profitable at the end of 2022. According to the President of Inventive Retail Group, Tikhon Smykov, new opportunities have even opened up in certain retail segments, for example, clothing, but entrepreneurs lack an understanding of the state’s long-term strategy in this area for investment. industries. In an interview with Vedomosti, the businessman spoke about the competition between parallel imports and smuggling, about plans to launch new brands and a service for online purchases of foreign brands, as well as about the bitter conclusions of Russian business from the behavior of Western companies.