Moscow News
www.MN.ru
June 1-7, 2005
Surprising Patriotism of Russian Consumers: But Will It Last?
By Marina Pustilnik
Last week the All-Russian Public Opinion Research Center published the results of a public opinion poll dedicated to the way Russians consider domestic and imported goods. Truly surprising is the fact that an overwhelming majority spoke in favor of domestic producers and limits imposed on imported goods.
93% of the respondents agreed that the government has to support domestic agriculture and food industry and limit the import of foreign-made goods. Russians also want the government to support the country's oil and gas industry (91% of the respondents) and aircraft industry (88% of the respondents). 70% of those polled expressed confidence that the state has to provide protection of domestic auto making industry and limit the access of foreign made cars to the Russian market.
The final accord of the poll, during which 1,600 Russians were questioned in 100 towns and cities, is that the people are so patriotic that they are ready to put up with price hikes for domestic goods and their not-always-very-high quality. Here this particular public opinion research starts to sound very much like its results were commissioned by the authorities. Either that, or the poll is the least representative of anything done in this area. Because if 93% of Russians support domestic producers and are willing to buy Russian even if it is more expensive and of worse quality, then does it mean that all of the imports whose volumes are growing by day are being consumed by the remaining 7%? Only the laziest of the government officials and market experts hasn't spoken of the fact that the strengthening of the ruble is hurting domestic companies whose production becomes less and less competitive. Imports are growing and if in some segments of the market Russian producers have been able to establish their presence (such as dairy and juices), in others - such as electronics and home consumer appliances - Russians traditionally trust foreign producers. Russian producers wishing to establish a presence on the home appliances market choose a foreign-sounding name, such as Sitronics or Vitek, to attract consumers.
The information about car preferences professed by Russians has been supported by another poll, conducted by ROMIR Monitoring. It showed that only 22% of Russian families have cars, and 19% of those 22% own foreign-made cars. This is a result of precisely those protectionist policies that Russians advocate so easily, but everyone would agree that it has had no positive effect on the quality of Russian-made cars. The only reason they are still being bought more readily is the cheapness of service and spare parts. And even that is no longer enough, as more and more drivers prefer used foreign-made cars to the new Russian ones in the same price segment.
It's great to be patriotic about domestic production, but not at the cost of the quality of the goods consumed. If Russian producers see the results of this poll as an invitation to keep raising prices without improving the quality then they will be in for a bad surprise, once Russia opens up the doors to cheap quality products from WTO member countries.