According to Nikolai Lantsev, director of the government and social initiatives practice at Reksoft Consulting, 40% of the creative industries are occupied by IT products, 20% by the advertising market, and the rest is shared by fashion, architecture and other areas, which, although they occupy smaller shares, are no less important for that.
“From the point of view of exports, what are creative industries? There are many, many, hundreds and thousands of small companies that will not come to China on their own, that will not cross the border. You cannot teach them how to cross the border, but outsource somewhere their functions of finding buyers, help them with financial transactions, maybe unite them somehow under general brands – it seems to me that everything has worked out for this,” Lantsev added.
Nikita Gusakov, senior vice-president of the Russian Export Center, mentioned the “Made in Russia” brand. Despite the pressure of sanctions, the brand gives an additional impetus to business. “But we also need to learn in terms of creative industries to combine a general country brand with general regional brands: “Made in the Far East”, “Made in Yakutia,” he noted, adding that somewhere a country brand will help better promote, and somewhere – local. So, combinations already work, for example, “Made in Russia” and “Made in Moscow.”
Deputy Chairman of the Primorsky Territory Government Nikolai Stetsko spoke about the major growth points of the creative sector, which local authorities identified based on the analysis: IT, fashion, cinema, music and tourism in terms of gastronomy. He also listed the support measures that are currently being provided to creative entrepreneurs: tax measures, subsidies, promotion, branding, interaction with retail chains and others.
Olga Nazaykinskaya, director of the Center for Education Transformation at the Skolkovo School of Management, noted that the recently adopted law on the development of creative industries in the Russian Federation has a separate article on educational support. It provides scope, in particular, for universities in the Far East to determine what to teach and then expand this practice to other regions of the country.
“In addition to professional skills that correspond to one or another creative industry – film production, animation, architecture, etc. – in my opinion, it is important to form and develop two more types of skills. The first are skills that allow going beyond known solutions, standard tools, bringing a certain creativity and even an engineering approach to any activity,” Nazaykinskaya said.
The second type of competencies, according to her, are personal ones, similar to those usually attributed to entrepreneurs. These are proactivity, subjectivity, the ability to set goals and move independently, self-organization, willingness to take risks and willingness to work through mistakes.
The head of the independent trade union New Labour, Daria Mitina, added that it is necessary to promote regional brands, transform them from regional to national, etc. “But it is no coincidence that today at the WEF we again spoke about the platform economy. Because platform employment plays an important role precisely in the conditions of vast territories, especially in the Far East and Siberia. It is important where it is impossible to buy something in person, where there are no shops within walking distance. As for statistics, we know about the explosive growth of the number of self-employed workers in the Far East and Siberian regions. “It is very promising for these territories: the development of this form of employment has been a great success, and platform workers are growing rapidly,” the head of the trade union noted.
