Minister of Industry and Trade of the Russian Federation Denis Manturov took part in the IV International Forum of Business and Government Russian Retail Week 2018, where he spoke at the plenary sessionDigital retail transformation". The discussion was also attended by the heads of leading retail chains, and the moderators of the session were the State Secretary-Deputy Minister of Industry and Trade of the Russian Federation Viktor Yevtukhov and Chairman of the Supervisory Board of the Russian Association of Retail Market Experts Ilya Yakubson.

In his speech, the head of the Ministry of Industry and Trade of Russia stressed that the agency has always advocated a reasonable combination of state regulation and self-regulation, which creates drivers for the growth of Russian trade. As an example, he cited the work on creating a favorable regulatory framework for the development of new formats of non-stationary and mobile trade. The Ministry proposed to remove restrictions on retail markets, due to which their number has decreased by 5 times over the past 10 years. The new bill is expected to create conditions for the emergence of about 2,000 markets within 3 years. 

Separately, the head of the department focused on the promotion of such a trade format as street retail, noting that joint work has already begun with urban planners, urbanists, commercial real estate specialists to remove unnecessary technical restrictions. He also drew attention to the e-commerce segment, which has been growing by more than 10% per year in recent years. 

Last year, the turnover of online commerce exceeded 1 trillion rubles and its share in the total retail volume thus amounted to about 3%.In the non-food segment, this share is already more than 7%. Digitalization penetrates into traditional trading channels and transforms them. One of the main trends is the development of omnichannel sales, that is, the combination of Internet technologies and conventional stores. About a fifth of Russian trade enterprises use big data in their business, and the most advanced ones use cloud technologies.

The Minister added that trade is one of the most advanced areas of activity and cited as an example the traceability system of goods being implemented as part of the fight against illegal trafficking of goods. He noted the successes in terms of mandatory labeling of natural fur products, and also mentioned voluntary experiments on medicines, tobacco and footwear products.

The key approaches to be identified at the Russian Retail Week 2018 will be integrated into The Strategy for the development of trade until 2025, which, in turn, should become an application document for building federal and regional policies in this area.

Source: Ministry of Industry and Trade of the Russian Federation