Trade representative Dakhnovsky: Russia needs real import substitution, not importing country change

BEIJING, AUGUST 5 – RIA Novosti. Alexei Dakhnovsky, Russia’s trade representative in China, told reporters on Friday that substituting imports from unfriendly countries with imports from China has very serious prospects, but Russia must switch to real import substitution.

“If we talk about replacing imports from unfriendly countries with imports from China rather than import substitution, it is obvious that there are serious expectations here. I can evaluate it according to the demands coming from trade. Dakhnovsky said, “Our companies need a wide enough range. There are also offers from Chinese companies for the supply of products that can replace imports from unfriendly countries,” he said.

“Everything is made in China today, and the technological level of the Chinese industry is quite high,” he said.

Of course, there are sectors where Chinese grow up, but there are also many sectors that produce products that are self-sufficient and in demand all over the world, the trade representative added, “and we definitely try to help our companies get Chinese products to replace Western ones.

“But I would like to draw attention to this. We need to switch from replacing imports from one country with imports from another to real import substitution. There are technologies that can be taken as a basis in China and that can be developed further in our country. There are very good minds in our country,” he said.

According to him, many countries have gone through this, for example Singapore, “they took the technologies of other countries, developed them so much that they passed on their intellectual property rights and then they began to export these technologies and products themselves.”