The nineties swept like a tornado throughout the post-Soviet industry. One of the industries most affected by the "reforms" was the machine tool industry. The disappearance of scientific institutes and large enterprises in the industry led to the fact that now, even buy a drilling machine of Russian production, which is assembled on domestic components is almost impossible.
Where to find the enemy
This is done by us. We have exhausted the domestic machine-tool industry with our own hands, practically to the root. For an example of this terrible statistic, compare the output of machine tools from 1990 to 2010. Volumes have decreased 25 times over 20 years! And the share of Russian machine tools in the domestic market is less than ten percent.
The stagnation of the manufacturing industry further exacerbated the fall in demand for new machines. Large enterprises of the industry have turned into shopping and entertainment centers and warehouses. The economic “model” of the nineties, which took as a basis the postulate “let's sell oil, of which we have a lot and buy everything we need in the West,” is still fundamental, to our great regret.
Why imports are better
"Getting up from his knees" in the 2000s did not greatly affect the state of affairs in the machine tool industry. For those enterprises still struggling to survive in the manufacturing industry, it is unprofitable to work with domestic machine tool manufacturers. And it's not about the low quality of the products, but about the high credit rate.
Russian enterprises are not comfortable working on a prepaid basis, because the production of one unit of the machine takes a lot of time. And the interest on the loan taken by the machine tool builder under the order will destroy all the margin. And a European manufacturer takes money from a bank at a rate of one and a half to two percent per annum, and even provides an installment plan for a Russian customer at five percent per year, which is quite cost-effective for the domestic market.
And it turns out that against the background of government statements about the need to support domestic producers, few real steps are being taken in this direction. Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev summed up the decisions on the development of the manufacturing industry machine tools and industrial equipment back in 2016. He stated that a number of processes that have begun to take place in this segment of the industry set up moderate optimism. And we will look at the results with hope. It is hoped that the restrictions imposed by the Western sanctions against Russia will attract domestic demand for domestic products.
