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Legpromforum, the International Forum of the Textile Industry, has started today along with Russian Textile Week at Expocentre Fairgrounds.

The conference programme of the Week, which includes the Inlegmash 2022 International Exhibition, the Interfabric 2022 International Exhibition and the Inlegmash International Industry Conference, started with a panel discussion. It was organised by Souzlegprom and EXPOCENTRE AO on the topic “The Russian textile and garment industry: realities and challenges of 2022”.

As Oleg Bocharov, Deputy Minister of Industry and Trade, said in his speech, the Ministry pays critical attention to the textile and garment industry. At the moment, he said, there is a need to support people. The government has a tough stance on the fact that all enterprises and their teams must be preserved.

"With regard to the foreign presence we have, we envisage a simple policy. If the owner, in spite of all the restrictions, tries to continue the operation of the enterprise, he will be supported by us in full. If he prefers to reduce his presence at the expense of the current situation, we will not let him harm the industry. We will take over people, facilities, competencies, markets, sales, supplies," said the deputy minister. At the same time, he noted with satisfaction that the Russian light industry grew by 10% last year.

This dynamic in the current situation needs to be strengthened, imports need to be substituted in the market by everything that Russian companies can do, logistics need to be provided for everything that is needed for production, and most importantly, the potential of production teams needs to be preserved and their presence in their own market needs to be established as much as possible, Oleg Bocharov stressed. 

Andrey Razbrodin, President of Souzlegprom, responding during the discussion to the question whether foreign brands should be expected to return to the Russian consumer goods market, said that just sitting and waiting is a silly thing to do.  "We need to work on developing our own industry, our own import substitution," he said and gave the example of the garment industry. At the end of 2019, it was only 45-47% loaded, but now it is over 100% loaded.  In other words, there is now competition for the location of the order. Sewing capacity is even in short supply. It is no coincidence that the ongoing Inlegmash exhibition is 85% dedicated to sewing, finishing processes. This is the direction in which to move, believes Andrey Razbrodin. Foreign brands that will not leave or will leave partially due to changing logistics will still order production in Russia, he believes.

Vladimir Padalko, Vice President of the Russian Chamber of Commerce and Industry, who took part in the session, noted that under the current conditions, in particular, with the loss of the European market at this stage, "dozing in foreign and Russian trade policy" is necessary. In his opinion, a balance is needed, an approach in which import substitution would not drive away our foreign partners. 

Representatives of many industry associations and heads of companies from different regions of Russia also spoke during the discussion.

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