Platform Economy Day at The National Centre RUSSIA

The International Laboratory for Digital Transformation in Public Administration systems (HSE University) Senior Research Fellow Evgeny Diskin took part in the event "Platform Economy Day", organized by the Presidential Administration of the Russian Federation, the Ministry of Economic Development of the Russian Federation The National Centre RUSSIA and the State Development Corporation VEB.RF. The event was held at the site of the Rossiya National Center and was dedicated to the role of digital platforms in ensuring sustainable economic growth, digitalization of public procurement, formation of ecosystems and the development of a new trading model.

Digital platforms and their ecosystems have become an integral part of citizens' daily lives and an important driver of the country's socio-economic development. They not only simplify access to goods and services, but also radically reduce barriers to business, especially for small and medium-sized enterprises, facilitating entry into new markets and exports. The event participants discussed the potential of platforms as an elevator for regional businesses, the platformization of public procurement to increase transparency and competition, the economics of trust through end-to-end data and the fight against counterfeiting, as well as the balance between online and offline trading formats. Special attention was paid to cross-border trade, self-regulation and the memorandum of good practices.

During the event, the platform economy was considered as an indicator of the technological leadership of the state, which includes three interrelated blocks: the availability of innovative solutions (including the introduction of AI to simplify the work of sellers and create interfaces that facilitate interaction with platforms); the ability to bring goods to markets, taking into account the predictability of conditions, simplification of exports and development strategies that affect the availability of goods and services; industry maturity with a contribution to GDP (5.9%), logistics development (8 million square meters platforms), IT and robotics, taking into account the oligopolization of the market and the need for regulation based on best practices.

Among the key topics and barriers were clear requirements for the identification of sellers and goods, protection in transparent conditions, civil law relations in the platform economy, consumer extremism, unfair consumer practices and trust within the economy. Dmitry Kim, Vice President of Government Relations at Ozon, emphasized that marketplaces have provided an "everything for everyone" model of universal accessibility (any product anywhere in the country for any person). Every third order on marketplaces is delivered to settlements with a population of less than 50 thousand people. He also noted that Russia is one of the first countries in the world with legislation on the platform economy, and the introduction of AI for sellers and interfaces facilitates communication between sellers and platforms.

The Governor of the Ivanovo Region, Stanislav Voskresensky, pointed out that the availability of goods and services depends on the platform development strategy, and platforms open up huge business opportunities and erase commodity inequality within the country. Maxim Oreshkin, Deputy Head of the Presidential Administration of the Russian Federation, noted: digital platforms are a different way of organizing economic activity, optimizing transactions and replacing institutions. He said that platformization in the economy as a whole is at different stages in different industries: somewhere it has reached almost 100% (taxi), somewhere it has just begun (education, medicine). A balance is needed between regulation, self-regulation and legislation.

The key events were the signing of a Memorandum on Good Practices for Digital Platforms in the presence of Maxim Oreshkin, Minister of Economic Development of the Russian Federation Maxim Reshetnikov, Chairman of the All-Russian Public Organization Delovaya Rossiya Alexey Repik and Chairman of the Supervisory Board of the NGO Association of Digital Platforms Andrey Sharonov. The document establishes obligations to support Russian manufacturers, anti-fraud mechanisms, data protection and anti-counterfeiting. In addition, there was a meeting of the interdepartmental working group on the development of digital economy ecosystems (headed by Maxim Oreshkin), as well as an open dialogue expert session with Tatiana Kim (founder of Wildberries and head of the combined Wildberries and Russ company), Tigran Khudaverdyan (Yandex Group of companies), and foreign speakers. — Jean-Filbert Nsengiman (Chief Digital Technology Advisor at the Center for Disease Control and Prevention of Africa, Rwanda), Fan Jian (Chief Big Data Specialist at China Unicom, China) and Shanta Tutam (former Director of Innovation at the Government of Telangana, India).