The taxonomy of technological sovereignty projects “did not work as we would have liked”: this was stated by the president of the Central Bank, Elvira Nabiullina, during the International Economic Forum in Saint Petersburg. The volume of the loan portfolio within the taxonomy could amount to trillions, but today it does not exceed 300 billion rubles, she noted. At one time, VEB.RF, one of the developers of the taxonomy, estimated that incentive measures could help create a loan portfolio of 5 to 10 trillion rubles, including 1 to 2 trillion rubles. in the first year after the launch of the mechanism. According to Nabiullina, there are two main reasons for this discrepancy. The first is the insufficient concentration of state support measures through which the State “shares risks” with investors in priority projects. Second, after discussions with the banks, it became clear that the list of projects was “too narrow,” she said. “For example, there are large infrastructure projects that the State is willing to support and share risks, but they are not included in the taxonomy,” said the president of the Central Bank, proposing to correct this situation.
The taxonomy was developed by the Ministry of Economic Development with the participation of VEB.RF and the Central Bank itself. It launched a significant, long-term restructuring of commercial banks’ lending processes, changing their goal-setting. That is, the task of the taxonomy is to make it more profitable for banks to lend for mechanical engineering and machine tool projects, rather than lending to a retailer for its turnover, because this allows banks to increase their own cost effectiveness. Thanks to the taxonomy, it is much more interesting for banks to invest in the projects they support than in the conditional “turnover”: the preferential risk weights applied to loans to technological sovereignty projects suggest that banks with a universal license must allocate three times less capital for such loans.
At the same time, the cycle of changes in banks’ credit policy approaches is quite long and takes at least a year. Therefore, the review of internal decision-making rules did not actually begin until 2024, although the taxonomy was launched earlier, in 2023. Therefore, we can say that the “taxonomy time” is yet to come.
Whether or not the taxonomy will work in the future largely depends on the project initiators, who will have to go to the bank with a request for loan funds and documentation for the technological sovereignty project. And their behavior, in turn, is determined by financial and economic conditions. It’s no secret that a high key rate has a negative impact on investment activity. Technological sovereignty projects, as a rule, are long-term and capital-intensive, so those who initiate them tend to postpone the start of their implementation during a period of looser monetary policy, despite the benefits provided. According to VEB estimates, the inclusion of a project in the technological sovereignty register provides the bank with an average profit of 1 percentage point, which, with an effective rate of 20% and a key rate of 16%, does not seem decisive. Additionally, demand for the taxonomy will be determined by its flexibility and ability to respond quickly to market demands. President Vladimir Putin has already stated this: according to him, in the future it is planned to further adjust the taxonomy in order to attract more resources for structural changes in the economy and increase the number of supported projects. The first step towards this further adjustment could be the extension of the taxonomy criteria, at the initiative of the Ministry of Economic Development, to the extraction of rare earth metals and the transport industry, as well as the introduction of investment incentive measures. of the banks in bonds. issued for priority projects. The latter will allow companies to attract financing on more favorable terms and reduce dependence on foreign financing sources.
In general, the configuration of the taxonomy and the emphasis placed on the medium term underlines the important role of banks in structural transformation. The future of the Russian economy and the level of its sovereignization will be, among other things, a response to the request made to investors in taxonomy projects; After all, it is the banks that will select, prepare and sign the projects. We can say that the success of this synergy will become the main factor in Russia’s technological development over the next six years.
