As it seeks to protect the industry against foreign competition, the Russian government has approved a proposed program of state support for Russia’s textile manufacturing industry, covering the current financial year. Set by the Ministry of Trade, the volume of support is at two billion roubles ($30 million). It has been authorised under an existing government policy, known as the ‘Strategy of Development of Textile and Light Industry in the Russian Federation’ for the period till 2025.

Currently, the share of Russian-made textile products within the domestic market is estimated at 24.6 per cent. However, the Russian government wants to increase this proportion to 50 per cent by 2018-2019. The government hopes that this expansion will generate up to 100,000 new jobs within the industry.

The government has confirmed that the majority of allocated funds will be spent on direct subsidies for textile and clothing manufacturers, especially producers of specialist technical clothing and school uniforms as for the latest spending programme. A portion of these funds will cover interest rates on loans, borrowed by Russian manufacturers from banks. Also, as mooted by earlier Russian government discussions, some of the funds will be spent on establishing a special bank branch within the state-run Russian Agricultural Bank (Rosselkhozbank), which will focus on providing loans to local clothing and textile manufacturers on beneficial terms.