The Russian Industry Ministry announced a new national strategy for the development of the country's sporting goods industry at the end of March, calling for a five-fold increase in the value of domestically sourced products by 2025 from its current level of 61 billion rubles (€788.6m-$975.8m). The categories involved including sports clothing, skis and bicycles and outdoor fitness equipment.
As part of this strategy, which is being advocated by Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, the government would start supporting the national industry with low-interest loans. The government is also planning to order that public sports facilities should only be equipped with products made in Russia.
The implementation of this program is designed to reduce the country's reliance on imported sports goods and to raise the share of domestic manufacturing from about 10 percent to at least 50 percent by 2025, the Ministry said, which estimates the total value of retail sales in the Russian sport goods market at around RUB 600 billion (€7.8bn-$9.6bn) in 2017.
