Kalibr Technopark was invited to participate in the online meeting held by the Russian Union of Entrepreneurs of Textile and Light Industry. The online meeting with the President of the Russian Union of Entrepreneurs of Textile and Light Industry, Mr Andrey Razbrodin, took place on 8th June 2020 and was devoted to the results of the resent meeting with Russian President regarding the issues of light industry. Andrey Razbrodin noticed the relevance of the industrial issues that were discussed during the meeting with Russian President and the decisions worked out in the meeting.

The President of the Union paid attention to the fact that the agenda of the meeting was prepared by the Ministry of Industry and Trade of the Russian Federation. It is pleasant that some of the joint proposals made by the Union of Entrepreneurs of Textile and Light Industry, Chamber of Industry and Commerce and other business associations were announced by Russian President. But it is important to include these proposals in the final document of the meeting with precise wording and specific deadlines.

General Director of JSC Shuiskiye Sitci (the Ivanovo Region), Anna Bogadelina, noted the in-depth development of the agenda and the integrated nature of anti-crisis proposals made by the Union and the Chamber of Industry and Commerce. During the meeting Ms Bogadelina reminded that it is necessary to increase financing of the federal flax growing and flax processing development programme due to growing demand for various linen industry products including the field of anti-epidemiological measures. According to Ms Bogadelina, her proposals were approved by Mr Putin. This programme, as the expert noted, shows collaboration between the Ministry of Agriculture and Ministry of Industry and Trade of the Russian Federation in almost all linen industry sectors, which creates basic conditions for successful implementation of the programme.

The Chairman of the Board at TDL Textile (the Ivanovo Region), Mikhail Shemelev, paid attention to the fact that it is necessary to get full support for the projects aimed at quality improvement of domestically produced linen fiber. According to Mr Shmelev, it is important that under the programme producers will get subsidies for the production of yarns, fabrics and other products made from this material. In addition, programme subsidies will allow developing such promising area as the production of linen and cotton products, replacement of cotton components with linen ones and make local prices for linen and cotton convergent. The expert says that it is necessary to support clothing manufacturing development projects, which is still a bottle neck in the Russian light industry. As for the amount of state support for the industry, Mr Shmelev estimates this amount at more than one billion rubles taking into consideration the current economic and industry situation. Of course, the fact that the industry is not included in the register of worst-hit industries will affect the recovery rate, "but additional supporting measures discussed in the meeting are a considerable motivation for the light industry to develop," assumes Mr Shmelev.

The participants of the meeting noted the importance of including products in the procurement and acquisition system, which is one of the supporting measures for light industry. In the course of the online conference the issues of bank lending for enterprises, standardization and certification of products and other issues were discussed.

Head of Kalibr Technopark, Kristina Zarubina, told about its operation in current conditions and about opportunities to use this type of business for the overall development of industries. Since 2018 an industrial cluster has been operating at PJSC Kalibr. It unites such major players of light industry as BASK and SolStudio.

*The original of the article.