25 Jan 2023 09:53

State support for Russia's chemicals industry flat at 14 bln rubles in 2022

MOSCOW. Jan 25 (Interfax) - Funding for government support of Russia's chemical industry in 2022 was comparable to the approximately 14 billion rubles allocated in 2021, the deputy director of the chemical engineering and bioengineering department at the Industry and Trade Ministry, Darya Shevyakina said, citing tentative figures.

"Last year we provided 7.8 billion rubles to companies in 11 months. We expect that for the whole year the amount of our support provided in 2022 will be on par with the year before last and amount to about 14 billion rubles. The financial results have just not been tallied up yet," Shevyakina said at the Ruplastica forum.

The Industry and Trade Ministry's presentation said that 7.44 billion rubles of the support provided in the first 11 months of 2022 went toward loans under Industrial Development Fund (IDF) programs, which were used by 25 chemical companies. The other 415.5 million rubles went to 18 projects in the form of compensation for some R&D expenses under a government resolution dated December 12, 2019 (No. 1649).

Shevyakina said the chemical industry grew in value but not in volume in 2022. "Overall, our chemical industry grew last year in monetary terms. In isolated segments, the chemicals industry grew in physical terms, well except for production of plastic products, such as polymer pipes, which probably grew at the highest rates compared to other segments. Therefore, one can say that everything is more or less okay in our industry in terms of production of finished products," she said.

The presentation said that production in the chemical industry grew to 7.074 trillion rubles in the first 11 months of 2022 from 6.09 trillion rubles in the same period of 2021 and 6.834 trillion rubles in all of 2021. Exports grew to $36.1 billion in the 11 months from $30.2 billion a year earlier, while imports were about flat at $31.6 billion.