Western companies promised to return to the Russian market

Impressed by the high availability of energy resources

Rumors that almost all foreign companies left Russia as a result of economic sanctions turned out to be greatly exaggerated. The situation is not that bad. Even the Deputy Prime Minister himself, head of the Ministry of Industry and Trade Denis Manturov, was pleasantly surprised. According to him, only 20% of European and American companies left the Russian market.

He stated this during the plenary session of the “Industry Day” at the “Russia” exhibition.

“Out of 500 European companies with a turnover of more than 0.5 billion rubles a year, only 100 left Russia,” he said. “And most of them have buyback options.”

According to the minister, other firms have retained their business in Russia and some of them are increasing investments.

The situation is approximately the same with large American companies. There were 350 such enterprises in our country, but 66 left, which is also close to 20%.

“This suggests that our market is interesting,” the deputy head of government emphasized, “and our potential is also interesting.” In his opinion, one of the decisive factors that attracts foreign investors is high availability of energy resources, which the Western market cannot afford.

We asked Nikita Maslennikov, a leading expert at the Center for Political Technologies, to tell us how to understand the Deputy Prime Minister’s words about Western companies. After all, there were so many different rumors and conversations that now, with the departure of branded industries, Russian industry will return to the 20th century with its primitive methods of production. But in reality it turns out that everything is not as scary as predicted.

“So understand,” he answered. – Of the total number of large foreign companies, 20% left. In fact, this is a lot. But their departure did not turn out to be critical for our industry and the economy as a whole.

However, there is no need to relax. According to the minister, in 2023 the volume of non-resource, non-energy exports from Russia decreased by 23%. Partly because these companies also left. We need to recover losses and look for new partners.

– But can Western enterprises that left our market return again?

– They have such an opportunity. If the new owner who bought their business wants to share the asset or part of the asset with the previous owner. The question is – will he want to?

– Who are these new owners?

– These can be different companies from friendly countries. But mostly – Russian business. Who made great efforts to ensure that when transferring (purchasing) assets, the enterprise continued to operate, so that investments were made in production and jobs were preserved.

Those who imposed economic sanctions and restrictions hoped that the exodus of Western companies would cause us irreparable damage. However, it is now clear that their departure has become one of the incentives for investment activity in 2023.

But we do not refuse foreign business returning to Russia.