Beneficiaries of the unified labeling system will receive trillions of profits from citizens and manufacturers.
Since the beginning of this year, the Russian government has expanded the list of goods subject to labeling. Fur coats, medicines, baby carriages, footwear, textiles, and then dairy products and, in general, almost all consumer goods produced and imported into Russia are planned to be marked with a two-dimensional code (Data Matrix format, an analogue of a QR code) and entered into a single database of the operator established based on the principles of public-private partnership (the concept of total labeling is designed until 2024) The need to introduce this "innovation" is heralded in a mega-positive way: they say, it will help to completely defeat counterfeit, create traceability of any product from the manufacturer to the end consumer and make the trade absolutely transparent. However, behind a beautiful screen hides the dark essence of the next "reform",which will enrich the comprador oligarchs close to the supreme power, rake through small and medium-sized businesses, especially farmers and other producers, and increase the cost of all goods for ordinary citizens.
Market participants of perfumes and eau de toilette are required to register in the labeling system by March 31, 2020. Mandatory labeling of perfumery products will begin on October 1, 2020. Until February 29, 2020, participants in the camera market were also required to register in the unified system. From November 1, 2020, the production and import of unmarked tires, as well as their sale by turnover participants working directly with manufacturers and importers, is prohibited, TASS reports with reference to the website of the Government of the Russian Federation.
The government gives time for stores to sell unmarked stocks until January 1, 2021 - from that date, the turnover of “unmarked” goods in the light industry will be prohibited. Here is what the head of the unified operator of the system being built - the general director of Operator-CRPT Dmitry Alkhazov - tells about the work already done:
We are gradually getting closer to the essence of the issue. Back in mid-December 2017, President Vladimir Putin approved the idea of creating this unified operator of a digital marking system for goods in Russia on the basis of Operator-CRPT LLC. This company is a subsidiary of the Center for the Development of Advanced Technologies. Most of the CRPT shares are divided between the structures of the Rostec state corporation Sergey Chemezov, the structures of the British citizen multibillionaire Alisher Usmanov and the venture investor Alexander Galitsky, whose fund is registered in the Cayman Islands, and a certain Oksana Oreshina, a former partner of businessman Vladimir beneficiary Shcherbitsiakov of the Russian Federation (forced transfer of the entire business to online cash registers of the established form), in 2017 was found hanged in his London apartment).
Thus, the CRPT is destined for the role of a natural monopolist in the labeling reform, and he was chosen for this role without an open tender. The irony is that its shareholders are always ready to paint the benefits to the country from their cunning way of making money, in fact, out of thin air:
An acquaintance of the President from the time of his joint service in the security organs in Dresden, state oligarch Sergei Chemezov has long been considered the leader of one of the influential Kremlin clans, constantly fighting for power and concentration of all kinds of resources under his wing. Despite the "power" background, it is very difficult to call Chemezov a patriot, however, looking for patriots among the multibillionaire managers of state monopolies is generally useless. Recent independent journalistic investigations clearly show how Chemezov, through his proxies, finances the "non-profit" opposition media - RTVI and Novaya Gazeta, and even participated in sponsoring the election campaign of Ksenia Sobchak. If you believe the messages of insider channels in Telegram,The state oligarch, during personal audiences with Putin, has repeatedly asked to give Rostec a key role in the marking reform. And these requests did not go unanswered. Moreover, in the Government, the marking undertaking is fully supported by "Chemezov's man" - Minister of Industry and Trade Denis Manturov: it is his department that directs and agrees with the Prime Minister all documents on the partnership of the state with the CRPT.
Investments of structures of Usmanov, Chemezov, Galitsky and Oreshina in CRPT will amount to approximately 205.7 billion over 15 years, while the team plans to soon reach a yield of 16%. And this is where the fun begins - each digital label applied to the packaging of the goods that you buy in the store is guaranteed to be reflected in the price of the goods. Some analysts estimate the losses of producers / distributors at 50 kopecks per unit of goods (excluding VAT!).
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In fact, the labeling mechanism has not yet been defined, either by law or by-laws. And, therefore, it is unrealistic to calculate the load on the business (one thing is to print tags on an inkjet printer, another is laser printing, etc.)
However, if you follow the calculations of blogger Sergei Druzhko, the new tax, from which no manufacturer, seller and importer of goods in the Russian Federation can escape, will annually replenish the treasury of Usmanov, Chemezov and his comrades by more than 1 trillion. rub. in year. On whose shoulders will producers and distributors pass their costs? That's right - as in the case of Plato (the scheme of enrichment of the Rotenberg oligarchs in general painfully resembles a marking scam), you and I will have to pay.
According to Druzhko's calculations, the mark-up for each product in the grocery basket will be at least 2.5 rubles. Taking into account the fact that, on average, each of us buys 40 items of various products in at least 100 units annually, we will now spend at least 10 thousand rubles additionally on labeled products. in a year. With clothes and other goods, the amount of expenses for citizens will increase to 20 thousand. At the same time, each of us has different appetites and opportunities, so the more goods of any kind we buy, the more we will have to pay for the Usmanov-Chemezov "innovation" …
All products from the EAEU also fall under the mandatory labeling. That is, there is a threat to the export potential of the Russian Federation and the very existence of the Eurasian community - the Armenians, Kazakhs, Belarusians and Kyrgyz will have to forcibly purchase the appropriate devices (2D scanners and software) and label all their exports to Russia. Small producers, first of all, farmers who produce the highest quality products, will get a lot of problems that can force them to leave the market altogether, which is a sad farce. After all, labeling lobbyists are just broadcasting to us about the unprecedented quality control of products and the victory over counterfeit.
More or less independent from the federal center, the media in the regions have already realized what this whole story threatens local business, and publish surprised and outraged opinions of entrepreneurs. Here is one of many examples - a comment from the owner of a chain of stores of workwear and tools from Nizhny Tagil:
Many large companies are in the same embarrassment. Thus, according to the estimates of a group of companies from the Rusbrand association, leaders in the production of baby food, each of them will need about $ 30 million to introduce a labeling system, which will lead to a rise in prices by about 5%. The smaller the packaging and the larger the batch of manufactured products, the more gesheft Chemezov will receive, Usmanov and his comrades - after all, it is necessary to mark each unit of goods. Accordingly, the more the labeling will affect its value for the end user.
A huge number of retailers will also have to buy and install CRPT-approved devices and software for reading and labeling. This is how another barrier is placed on the way of the already persecuted, taxed producers and sellers of products to the consumer. There is still no explanation of how to label products by weight: each weighed apple or carrot, loose sweets, a piece of meat or cheese cut off by the seller on the counter. But many, without any explanation, will realize that it is time to leave the "white" trade zone in the "gray" one.
So what will the introduction of this "mega-innovation" system have to improve product quality? Blogger Druzhko comes to a fair conclusion: absolutely nothing. After all, anyone, even the most unscrupulous manufacturer, can buy equipment for marking if desired. Naive people may think that cheap low-quality goods cannot be digitally coded in the same way, but in practice this is exactly what will happen. All information about the date, place of production and composition of the product can be easily found on the packaging and label today, citizens will not learn anything new. It is guaranteed to confirm the authenticity of the ingredients of a particular medicine, just as the quality of leather / fur clothing or footwear can only be verified by an examination, not by labeling. But this is the semi-official media,Vying with each other, brainwashing the population with some unprecedented "transparency", of course, prefer to remain silent.
Moreover, it now costs 50 kopecks to apply one code, and tomorrow public-private partners can easily increase this tax to 1, 2, 5, 15 rubles from each unit of goods - their fantasies and appetites, as we see, are limitless. The main thing is that the gesheft received from the marking will by no means go to the state budget, but will settle in the offshores of the comrades listed above.
If we go even further and just briefly evaluate the latest initiatives of the Government: the complete abolition of UTII (simplified tax) from 2021, a regular increase in VAT and the cost of a patent for private traders, a mandatory assessment of working conditions and a tax for self-employed, the universal forced implementation of online cash registers with crazy markups for equipment and its maintenance (of course, this did not bring any dividends to the Russian business itself), we will see that the near-government oligarchic "elite" has completely played with slaves and masters - it only has to establish a tax on rain and air, as in the famous children's tale about Cipollino, which the authorities in all seriousness may soon refer to extremist literature. In the meantime, "vegetables" (or "new oil" / "human capital" - as you wish) are pickled with "Platons", "Mercury",and now also the "Honest Sign" …