Unified register of manufacturers of unmanned aircraft and its components

2024: The government approved the launch of a unified register of manufacturers of drones and components for them

In early July 2024, the Russian government approved the rules for the formation and maintenance of a single register of domestic organizations engaged in the development and production of unmanned aircraft systems (ALS) and their components. This decision was made as part of the implementation of the Law "On Industrial Policy in the Russian Federation" and the national project "Unmanned Aerial Systems."

According to Rossiyskaya Gazeta, the main goals of creating the register are to record and monitor companies operating in the field of unmanned aircraft systems, as well as to attract new organizations to the production of such systems and provide state support to registry participants.

source = Ministry of Defense of Russia

Responsibility for maintaining the register is assigned to the Ministry of Industry and Trade of Russia. The document spells out both general and special requirements for organizations applying for inclusion in the register, as well as the procedure for making changes to registry records and the procedure for excluding companies from the list.

When developing the rules, the experience of maintaining similar registers was taken into account, in particular, in the field of information technology, which have already proven their effectiveness.

It is important to note that the new rules do not provide for additional requirements for entrepreneurial activity, are not related to state control or licensing and will not entail a deterioration in socio-economic conditions for business entities.

The adoption of the provisions provided for by the draft resolution will not require additional costs from the state budget, the explanatory note to the document emphasizes.

According to the project, the register will contain information about Russian organizations engaged in the development and production of ALS, including information about the products being produced and their compliance with the established requirements. This will ensure the transparency of the unmanned aircraft systems market and simplify the process of interaction between manufacturers and potential customers.^[1]

2023

The Ministry of Industry and Trade has developed rules for entering the unified register of drone manufacturers

On November 20, 2023, the Ministry of Industry and Trade announced the "Rules for the formation and maintenance of a single register of Russian organizations operating in the development and production of unmanned aircraft systems." The decree comes into force on January 1, 2024.

In accordance with the developed requirements, the register includes organizations that are not a foreign legal entity, and are also not under the control of a foreign state. Companies that develop drones must have a type certificate for unmanned aircraft. For drone manufacturers, the share of revenue from their sale should be at least 40% of the total income.

The Ministry of Industry and Trade has published the "Rules for the formation and maintenance of a single register of Russian organizations operating in the development and production of unmanned aircraft systems"

The documentation of the Ministry of Industry and Trade says that the register is formed in order to organize accounting and monitoring of Russian organizations involved in the creation and production of drones. The formation of the register will allow providing such enterprises with measures of state support: these are subsidies, tax benefits and participation in the state order. The Ministry of Industry and Trade is responsible for the creation and maintenance of the register.

Market participants, according to the Kommersant newspaper, believe that the developed rules will create a number of difficulties for developers and manufacturers of drones. In particular, the certification requirement can lead to "the dominance of prototypes from Chinese parts," which minimizes further attempts at import substitution. At the same time, the requirement for a 40 percent share of revenue will prevent large companies with diversified businesses from entering the register, such as NPP Radar mms, Geoskan, Finko, Transport of the Future (EFKO) or Aeromax (AFK Sistema). For these organizations with billions of dollars in turnover, the share of revenue from the sale of drones can be calculated only in units of percent.^[2]

Creating a Registry

On June 7, 2023, it became known about the creation by the Ministry of Industry and Trade of a single register of manufacturers of unmanned aircraft and its components. The preliminary list includes more than 100 companies, including Russian Helicopters, UZGA, Aeromax and Geoskan.

As Kommersant writes with reference to the statement of the Ministry of Industry and Trade, the unified register of manufacturers of drones and components will be approved in the fall of 2023. According to the publication, those companies that are not included in the list fear that it may be frozen, and the inclusion criteria will remain opaque, which will make it impossible to gain access to the state order, the volume of which will amount to 200 billion rubles until 2030, and benefits.

The unified register of manufacturers of drones and components will be approved in the fall of 2023

In addition, by the beginning of June 2023, companies providing services in the field of unmanned aircraft were not included in the register. But it is they who are engaged in the development of special software and affect the added value of UAVs, said the head of Aeronext Gleb Babintsev.

Industry leaders, of course, should be supported, says Andrei Timofeev, general director of the NTI Optiplein, but "you cannot close the door to support measures for developing, new and future companies."

I doubt that such a negative development of events will be embodied, but if it comes to this, the industry will react accordingly, "he concluded.

Discrimination against small producers in depriving them of their benefits and reducing competition in public procurement are fraught with "monopolization of the market by a number of its largest players and imitation of results," says Sergei Detenyshev, chairman of the board of the Association of Small Aviation Enterprises (MalAP). At the same time, restrictions in the form of "criteria for recognition as Russian" do not stand up to criticism in a situation where "most large players are engaged in large-unit assembly of Chinese components: from electronics to engines," he believes.^[3]

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