During a government meeting on the development of Russia’s IT industry, President Putin instructed the government to “carefully analyze all the proposals which were raised today by business” in order to “prepare a multifaceted plan to support the industry.”

Some of the proposals the USRBC quoted Mr. Putin as outlining included “a tax maneuver…which would stimulate the development of the IT sector,” “experimental regulatory regimes, so-called regulatory sandboxes [a testing environment designed to adapt compliance with strict financial regulations to the growth and pace of the most innovative companies, in a way that doesn’t smother the sector with rules, but also doesn’t diminish consumer protection—Editor’s note],” and further promotion of federal projects on developing artificial intelligence.

Mr. Putin also mentioned as an issue the need for data centers to have preferential access to electricity.

During the meeting, Valentin Makarov who heads the Russian Association of Software Companies (Russoft) reported that the industry had seen profits fall 40% in 2020, and that the industry would lose roughly 50,000 employees (10% of the workforce) due to the pandemic.