Non-Subscriber Extract
Russian industry hits high-tech low
By Nikolai Novichkov and Guy Anderson
15 January 2008
The creation of the Russian Technologies Corporation (Rostekhnologii) by presidential decree in November 2007 was preceded by a study of Russia's position in the world's high-tech market that showed it is on the verge of a crisis.
By the most optimistic estimates, Russia's slice of high-tech sales globally has slumped to 0.5 per cent, while the share of Russian machinery and equipment in world exports of manufactured high-tech products stands at about 0.3 per cent.
In recent years, the share of high-tech engineering products in Russia's exports has plunged, accounting today for some 5 per cent of the country's total foreign sales.
Technologically, Russia's machine-building industry is in a sorry state. In many research-and-development (R&D) areas the country remains where it was in the 1970s and 1980s.
It is also apparent that the organisational structures of Russia's defence companies remain unreconstructed after the Soviet era - design bureaus and research institutes continue, to an extent, to exist as separate entities.
Boris Alyoshin, president of the Russian League of Assistance to Defence Enterprises (LADE), was quoted as saying in early 2007 that "the entire work pattern of the Russian [defence] industry is obsolete", adding that efforts are necessary to allow "Russia to compete on the world market as a fully fledged player".
In addition to eroding Russia's position in the global market place, it has been argued that the country's poor position in terms of high technologies has made domestic defence organisations unduly reliant on imported foreign technology and has left the economy too reliant on the production and export of raw materials.