The European and United States partners of Russia's auto industry could return to collaboration within the next two to three years, which must be taken into account when planning the industry's strategic development, as well as the obvious reluctance on the part of Eastern investors to localize in Russia, PJSC Kamaz Deputy CEO Mikhail Matasov said on Tuesday at a round table on developing Russia's auto industry at the Federation Council, as per Interfax.
Matasov noted that Kamaz over the past year has been actively discussing with the Industry and Trade Ministry, other ministries, and the presidential administration matters on updating the strategy to develop the domestic auto industry, given that Kamaz believes that "the situation has changed somewhat today in the country, worldwide, and in the industry, and the necessary revisions are overdue."
"It is important to note that the strategy does not fully take into account the geopolitical and macroeconomic situation in the current conditions, placing the main emphasis on cooperation with eastern partners and assuming the transfer of eastern technologies to Russia. Meantime, it does not take into account the lack of interest - which is already obvious to everyone - on the part of eastern partners in technological cooperation, in general in any cooperation, and the significant dependence of the eastern partners on the North American, probably, 'non-partners'," he said.
Matasov said that one of the industry strategy's shortcomings is the lack of a scenario for "a political U-turn in European countries, our former partners, which would suggest possible concessions to access to Western technologies."
"We assume that European and perhaps American partners in the next two to three years could return to the possibility of cooperation with Russia's enterprises. We assume here that it is necessary to reflect in the strategy how we would collaborate with them," he said.
Matasov also noted that the auto industry's strategy in its current version postulates "movement toward all possible goals simultaneously, while the goals are mutually exclusive in a number of cases."
"The strategy contains many contradictions that manifest themselves firstly in the issues of localization, competitiveness, and promising products. In declaring the simultaneous achievement of international competitiveness and technological sovereignty, the strategy in a certain sense puts the industry in a dead end, since international competitiveness functions on the principles of the international division of labor," he said.
Matasov believes that the strategy also requires revision because it currently classifies too wide a range of transport types as promising technologies, namely traditional vehicles with internal combustion engines of all categories and gas-powered vehicles, as well as local hybrids, electric vehicles, vehicles on hydrogen fuel cells, and autonomous vehicles.
"Well, it is difficult to imagine that all areas that exist in the industry could be a priority at the same time. It is additionally obvious that the costs to develop duplicate types of transport would generally be prohibitive and inappropriate. Nevertheless, the strategy, without a supporting forecast, simply proposes to move in all directions of possible development as predetermined by the conditions of 2022, when the strategy was prepared," Matasov said at the Federation Council.
We remind, Russian GDP grew an estimated 3.2% year-on-year in October, the Economic Development Ministry said in a report on the current situation in the economy. GDP grew 3.2%, adjusted from 2.9%, in September also. It rose 2.5%, adjusted from 2.4%, in August, 3.4% in July, 3.2% in June, 4.7% in May, 4.6% in April, 4.2% in March, 7.6% in February and 4.8% in January. The economy grew 4.1% year-on-year in January-October.
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