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Heads of government of the Eurasian Economic Union approved the development of proposals on sustainable funding sources for cooperation projects in manufacturing industry. In accordance with the EIC disposition, in Q4 2022 the Eurasian Economic Commission together with the governments of the Union States will present proposals on specific sources and mechanisms of concessional financing to implement integration projects in real economy, especially in those industries that are more dependent on imports of foreign products.

"Heads of government of the Eurasian Economic Union supported the initiatives by the Commission's Industrial Unit on the need to develop new mechanisms of industrial cooperation funding. We see the priorities both in the strategic industries where there is high dependence on imports (for instance, aviation, microelectronics, pharmaceuticals) and, certainly, we will consider other business projects where there is a cooperative component," emphasized Artak Kamalyan, EEC Minister in charge of Industry and Agriculture. "This will allow to spur development of the Union's industrial complex, to make innovative high-value-added products and to advance the sustainable economic growth issues of the Eurasian Five countries."

The EEC Minister pointed out that the Commission, together with the Member States, had been actively working in that regard since 2020. These objectives are envisaged in the Strategic Directions for Developing the Eurasian Economic Integration until 2025 and the Disposition No. 12 of the EEC Council dated March 17, 2022 on prompt measures to improve economic stability of the EAEU states aimed at developing the internal market and cooperation in the Union.

According to Artak Kamalyan, the business community repeatedly approached the Commission about the need to improve conditions for industrial cooperation, to start joint ventures, to implement new infrastructure projects and to develop supranational support measures for integration projects. In the course of work with the Union's Chambers of Commerce and enterprises the EEC experts identified main barriers to practical implementation of cooperation projects in manufacturing industry. In particular, it is a lack of incentive rates for borrowed funds required to implement such projects.

At the moment, the EAEU is confronted with decreased mutual and outside investments in real economy. So, attracting investments in industrial production should become one of the priorities for our countries and the Commission, as was emphasized by the EEC Minister.

As part of implementing instructions by Heads of the Union States on developing industrial cooperation and together with national and supranational development institutions, an analytical report was prepared covering the current situation and approaches to possible sources and mechanisms of funding cooperation chains.

"The EEC proposals contain focus areas to find new sources and mechanisms of funding among which there might be subsidies from the budgets of the EAEU countries, contributions from customs receipts, establishing a sector-specific fund, employing resources of the Eurasian development institutes or applying mixed financing mechanisms," summed up Artak Kamalyan.