Russia’s high-tech sector will receive more support

Significance

After being targeted by Western sanctions, Russia’s high-tech sector has been boosted by the new opportunities created by the government’s import substitution programme, the withdrawal of large numbers of foreign firms and growing demand from the military-industrial sector.

Impacts

• Growth in the high-tech sector will be impeded by the severance of links with some of the world’s leading high-tech companies.
• Russia will lack the domestic resources to develop a wide range of internationally competitive high-tech industries on its own.
• The defence-industrial sector will be the principal beneficiary of state support for technological development.