Launch of tax benefits
On 26 October, at the New Stage of the Alexandrinsky Theatre, within the framework of the Annual Investment Forum in St. Petersburg, the session “Pharmacy of St. Petersburg — Export and Innovation Opportunities” was held with the participation of Alexander Semyonov, the president of “Acticomp”. During this event, representatives of the state-federal and regional authorities and business discussed the development of the pharmaceutical cluster in St. Petersburg, the export potential of the industry and mechanisms of providing support to manufacturers.
Chairman of the Committee for Industrial Policy and Innovation of St. Petersburg Maxim Meiksin noted that St. Petersburg has every chance to become a leader in the market of the Russian pharmaceutical industry.
“Our city can easily achieve such an ambitious goal — 82 large scientific centres operate in St. Petersburg, this year 20 new scientific and industrial enterprises will open, most of which are pharmaceuticals.” The head of the Committee said that the project of Pushkinskaya industrial zone and Special Economic Zones OJSC are the main points of growth. The turnover of the industry reached 13 billion rubles for six months, which is 6% of the national volume of production. “In the next few years, we will see 10% of the total Russian production,” said Mr. Meiksin.
The speakers of the session agreed that the main task of the state is to promote the sale of products through the introduction of specific incentives to producers, thereby maintaining stable indicators of the industry growth (in 2015 and 2016 the market growth amounted to annual 20%) and the economy of the region as a whole.
“Tax preferences in St. Petersburg will provide an ‘explosion of investments’ necessary for further growth at a rate of previous years,” said Alexander Semyonov, President of “Acticomp”.
According to Maxim Meiksin, the revised project of granting preferences to producers under special investment contracts is currently under consideration: with a minimum investment of 750 million rubles, the company will be able to receive tax benefits in the amount of 0% on profit and property. Also, the city is discussing other options of tax preferences for industrial enterprises, and the draft will be presented to businessmen in the near future. Legislative innovations are planned to be introduced and approved by 1 December 2017, in order to launch the process of obtaining preferences starting from 2018.
Zakhar Golant, moderator of the session mentioned that the current key trend is the production of substances which will bring the Russian market to the world level. The trend is confirmed by the policy of world leaders in the production of substances: India has introduced a third wheel algorithm with customs duties for export of local substances, and China will soon begin to close entire production provinces due to the difficult environmental situation. This leads to higher prices for substances for external markets.
“We are already addressed by partners who complain about a sharp increase in prices and request to sell domestically produced substances that they need. For example, loperamide for the well-known drug ‘Immodium’ cost 50-60 dollars per kilogram a few years ago and then we refused production because it had low profitability. Now the Chinese sell a kilogram of this substance for 350 dollars, that is, the price sharply increased sevenfold!” said Alexander Semyonov.