FOOD INDUSTRY MACHINE BUILDING OUTLOOK DISCUSSED AT FEDERATION COUNCIL.

Svetlana Danilina, the General Manager of TAURAS-FENIX JSC, presented her report at the meeting of Interim Commission of the Federation Council of Russian Federation for legislative support of development of technic and technologic basis of Agriculture and Industrial Complex of Russian Federation, held on January 29th in Moscow.

The key subject of the discussion was the outlook on development of machine building for the needs of the food industry and innovative solutions for more efficient cultivation and storage of agricultural products.

Heads of Minpromtorg, members of the Federation Council of Russian Federation, Konstantin Babkin, the head of Rosspetsmash Association, representatives of industry associations and manufacturers of food equipment took part in the meeting.

Svetlana Danilina, the General Manager of TAURAS-FENIX JSC, representing the food industry machine building, delivered her expert keynote on prospects of development of this sector.
NB: Svetlana Danilina is the Chairwoman of the Committee of food equipment manufacturers applied with Rosspetsmash. The Committee is in duty for analysis of the development of the food equipment manufacturing industry, coordination of steps for boosting of the competitiveness of Russian equipment on the domestic and foreign markets. Growth of the output of the industry and development of the human resources potential at the enterprises are the tasks of the Committee as well. Svetlana Danilina using her experience touched the matter of expanding of the set of existing supporting measures serving to develop the potential of domestic manufacturers.

The noteworthy solutions among supposed were:

• opportunity of development of a new subsidy program for the modernization of the manufacturing facilities of enterprises to provide the upgrade needed for production of innovative equipment in Russian Federation;

Activities on development of human resources potential:

• establishment of joint branch departments uniting high-school with domestic industrial enterprises to provide junior experts with examples of practical experience of foreign companies and of usage of European technologies in addition to the fundamental knowledge of academic education;
• ensuring of the transfer of knowledge and technologies from foreign technical educational centers;
• establishment of industry-oriented scientific-educational centers on the basis of the State technical-focused universities.

Activities on reducing the components based expenses:

• Opportunity to create joint base of state-controlled manufacturers of high-quality components involved in producing of the components for the needs of domestic industry members on the common price-basis;
• Materialization of a number of state-implemented programs to support new domestic suppliers;
• raise of the import duties for the equipment for the food industry. According to the General Manager of TAURAS-FENIX JSC this step might stimulate the demand for domestic equipment and might become a new driver for the development of program aimed to replace imported equipment with domestic analogues;

Boosting of export potential:

• Opportunity to implement subsidizing of export duties and expenses;
• Implementation of preferences in payments of export duties for certain types of equipment;
• Opportunity of funding the expenses for establishing and running of sales-offices of Russian manufacturers during one year. Other offered way is in subsidizing the expenses for creation of show-rooms abroad to exhibit as on constant basis, so with rotation of different models of equipment of Russian origin.

Members of the meeting and Konstantin Babkin, the President of industry Association Rosspetsmash, were speaking about the practicality of manufacturers' participation in state programs and activities being run to support the food industry machine building. Konstantin Babkin noticed in his report that russian manufacturers have been showing constant growth of output lately. Total output of domestic equipment will exceed 17 billion rubles according to Rosspetsmash Association appraisement, while the same benchmark was 16 billion rubles last year. The share of Russian manufacturers in the domestic market is now 20%. For reference, it did not exceed 12% in 2015. Konstantin Babkin also noted that effective programs of state support play an important role in the development of the industry. 28 companies were funded with total sum of 900 million rubles to provide 15-20% discounts within this program last year. It is logical that this program will be prolonged and there will be budgeted 2,1 billion rubles in 2019 for the same needs.

The president of Rosspetsmash also spoke about the necessity to take the next steps: raise of import duties for the foreign equipment for food and processing industries to meet the tariff binding level of the WTO, forbid the procurement of foreign equipment for state and municipal needs. According to mr.Babkin it's important to reduce the loan interest rates, insurance tariffs for export loans, expand the number of events of food industry machine building with participation of Russian Export Center JSC.