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- Rapid progress: the cumulative growth rate of the IT industry in Russia has reached 28%
Rapid progress: the cumulative growth rate of the IT industry in Russia has reached 28%
In five years, the average annual cumulative growth rate of the domestic modern technology industry has reached almost 28%, Anton Nemkin, a member of the State Duma Committee on Information Policy, Information Technology and Communications, told TASS in an interview. At the same time, Russia's share of GDP has roughly doubled. What are the growth prospects for the IT sector in Russia in the coming years and what difficulties businesses have to face — in the Izvestia article.
Prospects of the sphere
The growth of the IT industry in Russia will continue, despite external constraints, Natalia Ababiy, founder of the Remote Global online platform, told Izvestia.
— We expect annual growth of at least 20-30% in the next 3-5 years, especially due to the digitalization of the public sector, education, industry and HR. The transition to proprietary IT solutions, from platforms to AI tools, will play a significant role. The increased interest in import substitution, cybersecurity, platform solutions and EdTech creates a sustainable basis for growth," she said.
In her opinion, the market for platform solutions for personnel training and development management will grow especially actively, both in business and in the public sector. There is already a surge in demand for products that allow you to customize ecosystem processes in training, assessment and personnel development based on domestic technologies.
In 2022-2024, the information security market in Russia increased 1.5 times, outstripping the overall IT market in terms of growth rates, Valery Baulin, CEO of F6, told Izvestia. On average, the information security market grew by 25-30% per year.
In 2022-2023, IT companies sought to maintain their competencies in the country and looked forward to realizing new opportunities in a changed market by launching new ambitious projects, Tatiana Khansuvarova, an expert at the ACRA corporate ratings group, noted in an interview with Izvestia.
— The way of import substitution turned out to be not as simple as it might seem at first glance. Russian products may not always completely replace the functionality of foreign ones, and in some niches, Russian analogues have not been created. Inflationary pressures and the high cost of borrowing played an important role: despite the availability of opportunities to attract financing at a discounted rate, not all companies can use them. It is likely that it will not be possible to maintain high growth rates in the coming years, and we will see some cooling of the IT market," the expert emphasized.
The main challenges
Natalia Ababiy is sure that one of the key problems is staff starvation. There is still a shortage of highly qualified IT specialists, especially in the areas of backend development, AI, and product management. Young staff require further training and implementation, which increases the project launch cycle.
— The second difficulty is the long cycle of approvals in the public sector and the limited flexibility of government customers. Many projects are delayed due to bureaucracy, which reduces the speed of digital transformation," the expert believes. "The third is the lack of a mature ecosystem for integrating domestic IT products among themselves. So far, we see a lot of point solutions, but few integrated, interoperable solutions, which limits scaling.
At the same time, thanks to the implementation of national programs for the digitalization of the economy and the state, Russia today is one of the world leaders in the introduction and application of IT technologies in the field of public services, the financial sector, medicine, transport and many other areas, the head of the Department for the study and development of AI in the field of public administration of the Center emphasized in an interview with Izvestia. training of managers and digital transformation teams at the Petr Ototsky Presidential Academy. Thus, the BRICS countries are interested in copying the Russian experience of digitalization, and this is a great potential for Russian IT companies to enter international markets for further development of the IT sector.
— The main driver of digitalization today is artificial intelligence technology. A study of the AI maturity of federal executive authorities conducted by the RANEPA in 2024 showed that only about 30% of agencies actively use AI to solve work tasks. Thus, today in Russia there is a great potential for further replication of successful experience in the use of digital technologies," he noted.
Possible support measures
After the completion of the national project "Digital Economy", the national project "Data Economics and Digital Transformation of the State" will set the direction for the development of the industry until 2030, Ekaterina Shchekina, Associate Director for Corporate Ratings at Expert RA, told Izvestia. As a result, it is planned to increase the share of households with access to high-speed Internet to 97%, and to increase the share of organizations in key sectors of the economy that have switched to using domestic software to 80%.
According to the Russoft NP report, the level of government support is assessed by IT companies quite well and the assessment of federal measures shows growth, which, together with the results of the industry's work, indicates their effectiveness, Tatyana Khansuvarova recalled.
— Their further development is seen more as a point adjustment: it is worth paying more attention to small companies, regional support measures (according to the same report, support measures from regional authorities are rated lower by IT companies than federal ones and the indicator is decreasing), as well as reducing bureaucratic barriers to exports, - the expert is sure.
First of all, it is necessary to continue and expand programs to subsidize IT development and pilot implementations, especially in the real sector, education, healthcare and public administration, Natalia Ababiy believes. This will help IT companies scale faster.
In addition, in her opinion, a flexible tax policy and a reduction in the administrative burden for IT companies are needed. The existing tax benefits are an important step, but they can be adapted to new realities, including working with the self—employed, freelancers, and remote teams. Finally, it is extremely important to develop training and retraining systems.
Today, the development of IT technologies is of global importance for all sectors of the economy, such as banking or construction, Vladimir Prokhorov, a member of the General Council of Delovaya Rossiya, said in an interview with Izvestia. It is obvious that the sanctions restrictions have led to difficulties in various sectors of the economy, while pushing domestic specialists to develop their own products and software.
In his opinion, the state actively supports the development of the IT sector, including through social policy. Measures such as IT mortgages have made it possible to attract a significant number of young professionals to the industry.
"Today, the expert community notes the need to disseminate domestic solutions, but it cannot be denied that foreign developments had weight, and it will take some time to compensate for these losses," he stressed.
The Ministry of Energy forwarded Izvestia's request to the Ministry of Finance, but by the time of publication, the agency had not provided a response.
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