The Ministry of Industry and Trade may restrict parallel imports of products of brands Acer, IBM, Dell and others
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The Ministry of Industry and Trade, together with Russian manufacturers of computer equipment, is considering the possibility of restricting parallel imports to Russia of products of more than 20 foreign brands, including Acer, IBM, Dell and others. Russian vendors believe that it is necessary to generally ban the supply of equipment whose analogues are produced in the country. But IT market participants and data center operators say that the current quantity and quality of domestic equipment will not be enough to meet demand, and in case of restrictions, it will only increase in price.
A Kommersant source in the electronics market said that the Ministry of Industry and Trade is discussing with a number of domestic manufacturers the restriction of parallel imports of computer equipment. In particular, the consortium of ANO Computing Equipment (ANO VT; Yadro, Aquarius, Kraftway, etc.) suggested that the Ministry of Industry and Trade exclude HPE, Acer, PureStorage, Basler, Asus, MSI, Delta Electronics from the list of equipment subject to parallel import , Palit, Palo Alto, Quanta, Schnider Electric. In the Ministry of Economy, another interlocutor of Kommersant specified, a more extended list is being considered: IBM, Dell, NetApp, Pure Storage, Fusitsu, HP, xFussion, Inspur, Cisco, Hitachi, Arista, Delta Electronics, Oracle, Quanta Supermicro.
Vasily Shpak, deputy head of the Ministry of Industry and Trade, confirmed to Kommersant that the initiative is being discussed: the ministry is “waiting for more specifically formulated proposals.” Kommersant’s source in the market claims that “a regulatory act on amendments has already been prepared.” ANO VT did not answer “Kommersant”.
The Ministry of Digital Development believes that “it is possible to consider the issue of blocking parallel imports only in relation to those products, the production of which has already been established in the Russian Federation.”
In 2022, the supply of servers, data storage systems (DSS), computers and spare parts for computers decreased by 15%, to $ 6.6 billion, one of Kommersant’s interlocutors notes, referring to information from the Federal Customs Service. The physical volume of imports, according to him, decreased by 24%, to about 41 million devices: “Asian manufacturers have become leaders, the share of American and European ones has decreased tenfold.”
After the outbreak of hostilities in Ukraine and the refusal of most vendors from deliveries to the Russian Federation, domestic IT companies talked a lot about problems with obtaining equipment. In particular, VK asked the Ministry of Digital Transformation to find a supplier of “tens of thousands of servers.” (see “Kommersant” dated April 25, 2022). As a result, a year ago Russia legalized the import of electronics without the permission of the copyright holder, the so-called parallel import (see “Kommersant” dated June 28, 2022), which is now opposed by domestic vendors.
The representative of the Russian computer manufacturer Aquarius confirmed the desire to limit parallel imports, while recognizing the impossibility of completely stopping it:
“It is necessary to introduce more precise regulation, limiting support for the import of equipment, the production of which is actively developing in the country.”
Aquarius added that the industry is preparing proposals for the Ministry of Industry and Trade.
At the level of client products, servers of standard architecture and storage systems of initial and middle levels, there is currently no shortage of equipment, notes Alexei Melnikov, managing partner of F + tech Group of Companies: “This is due to the completion of the reconfiguration of parallel import logistics channels, a large volume of components and finished products in the speculative Asian market , as well as large stocks of equipment from suppliers in the Russian Federation. Mr. Melnikov emphasizes that there is a great demand for Russian equipment, especially those included in the register of the Ministry of Industry and Trade, therefore, he says, in 2022, domestic developers have increased investment in production.
However, distributors and buyers are against drastic steps.
“Reducing the list of parallel imports can lead to a shortage and an increase in the cost of equipment,” emphasizes the representative of RATEK (including M.Video-Eldorado, Citilink, Huawei and others) Anton Guskov.
Limiting the supply of foreign computing equipment will slow down the development of some areas of IT industries, including the financial sector, cloud platforms, etc., Pavel Kulakov, founder of the data center and cloud provider Oxygen, adds: “Now Russian storage systems and servers are not able to fully meet the needs of the market, both quantitatively and technically. Also, he notes, if restrictions are introduced, the cost of not only foreign solutions, but also Russian ones will increase, which will affect the final price of IT companies’ services.
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