The State Duma may limit the purchase of foreign software for state-owned companies

Yesterday, at an expanded meeting of the relevant State Duma committee, deputies discussed a bill to limit the procurement of foreign software for state-owned companies. Previously, such a restriction was proposed only for authorities. The corresponding bill was developed by the Internet Development Institute (IRI), writes RBC . The document repeats the provisions of the draft government decree previously developed by the Ministry of Communications.

True, there are differences. So, in the proposal of the Ministry of Communications, only Federal Law 44 is mentioned, in relation to the procurement of state and municipal bodies. But Iran proposes to amend the law 223 FZ, with the extension of the priority of domestic software and the restriction on the acquisition of foreign software for state-owned companies. If the document is adopted, such state corporations as Gazprom, Rosneft, Rosatom and other large companies will replace foreign software with domestic software.

According to the chairman of the committee on information policy, information technology and communications Leonid Levin, the bill will soon be submitted to the State Duma for discussion. At the same time, some State Duma deputies believe that Iran is not trying to change or supplement the initiative of the Ministry of Communications, since the idea originally belonged to the institute.

Earlier, the Russian Federation has repeatedly stated the need for import substitution, and now this issue is considered not only in the application to industrial goods, food products, but also in relation to the intellectual sphere - software, technology, etc. The bill proposes three main components of the course on import substitution:
1. Identification of important criteria for domestic software;
2. Compilation of a register of domestic software;
3. The priority of Russian software in public procurement.

An important point is that there is no direct ban on state-owned companies from buying foreign software. But when purchasing software abroad, a buyer from the Russian Federation will now have to justify his choice in writing.

According to Evgeny Vasilenko, Executive Director of Russian Software, ARPP, two-thirds of the software that is currently used in Russia is produced abroad. At the same time, there are domestic analogues of foreign software used in the Russian Federation, moreover, competitive analogues.

According to the director of the Internet Initiatives Development Fund Kirill Varlamov, before the crisis, the software market in Russia was estimated at $ 4 billion.