The rules for recognizing domestic electronic equipment may be adjusted

The Computing Technology consortium proposes to award almost the maximum 20 points to Russian electronics for the use of domestic hard drives, printed circuit boards for power supply, RFID modules and a number of other components. Market participants believe that the initiative will allow us to overcome the threshold required for recognition of technology as domestic. Experts object that it will become easier to achieve recognition of Russian devices based on foreign production.

“Kommersant” got acquainted with the amendments to government decree No. 719 “On confirmation of the production of industrial products on the territory of the Russian Federation”, which are being prepared by the specialized consortium ANO Computer Technology (ANO VT; includes Aquarius, Core, Fplus, etc.). The document provides for the accrual of the maximum 20 points after the processor to recognize electronics as domestic for the presence in the final device of Russian SSD hard drives (solid-state drive SAS), printed circuit boards for power management, control boards, contactless card readers (RFID module), etc. Total ANO VT offers seven additional items.

The document also contains a clause on the compatibility of Russian mobile operating systems with smartphones in order to recognize them as “domestic” (see “Kommersant” dated February 15). The consortium, according to Kommersant, will provide the list to the Ministry of Industry and Trade by the end of February. ANO VT stated that there are no agreed changes to Resolution No. 719 yet. The Ministry of Industry and Trade did not answer Kommersant.

At the end of last year, Russian manufacturers of memory disks (SSD drives) asked the government to cancel the increase in the number of points for recognizing SSDs themselves as Russian from 25 to 55 points (that is, in fact, to reduce the number of domestic components required for this). The norm was supposed to come into force on January 1, 2024. Among those who took part in drafting the letter were the largest manufacturers of memory drives, in particular the Kaliningrad GS Group, which launched mass production of SSDs in 2018 (see “Kommersant” dated November 7, 2023). GS Group reported that changes to Resolution No. 719 are “constantly discussed at the ANO VT site with the participation of experts.”

Director of the Promobit company (manufacturer of servers and storage systems Bitblaze) Maxim Koposov believes that expanding the list of components for which points are awarded to recognize equipment as Russian is beneficial to all market participants, “while points are given only for non-repeating components, so that the manufacturer cannot, Let’s say you put three identical drives and get 60 points for them instead of 20.” Mr. Koposov believes that the addition of new elements may be associated with an annual increase in the threshold of points for recognizing electronics as domestic. Now, he says, to recognize a data storage system as Russian, you need to score at least 150 points, and for servers – 140 points.

However, the director of the Consortium of Russian developers of data storage systems (including Norsi-Trans, Baikal Electronics, MCST, etc.) Oleg Izumrudov does not support the initiative of ANO VT. In his opinion, the proposed amendment will allow foreign products to be included in the register of domestic electronics simply by integrating Russian solid-state drives or RAM modules into them.

“In addition, most “domestic” drives are produced using large-scale assembly. In the case of solid-state drives, they are assembled into a case from ready-made boards using modified built-in software,” emphasized Mr. Izumrudov. According to his estimates, the production of Russian drives is not enough for all the equipment produced, which is in the register of the Ministry of Industry and Trade, so companies will continue to use imported components.

Timofey Kornev