M.Mishustin: Dear Anton Pavlovich!
You are the head of the department that is engaged in standardization, ensuring the uniformity of measurements and contributes to the development of our economy, the introduction of the most advanced developments, which is extremely important now that we ensure the technological sovereignty of our country.
The standardization system in the current conditions is becoming increasingly relevant. We are actively developing our own production. Of course, at the same time, it is impossible to allow loss of quality for the end user. And the most important tool for this is the state standards.
Last year, significant changes were made to the relevant legislation, which made it possible to reduce the development time of the state standard from 24 months to 9 months. This is one of the best results in the world.
Anton Pavlovich, tell us what the agency is doing now to expand the application of standards in practice.
A.Shalaev: Mikhail Vladimirovich, as you know, standardization is a tool for implementing the industrial policy of the Russian Federation. Therefore, the emergence of new technologies, the request for their accelerated implementation, import substitution and generally ensuring import independence in a number of industries required improvement of standardization procedures.
That is why the changes in legislation that appeared last year were most welcome.
We are now seeing the first results. During 2021, 1,600 new standards were adopted – this is the absolute maximum for more than a five-year period. However, it is obvious that the most important thing is not how many standards are adopted, but how they are applied in practice. And here I should note that for the first time, almost half (49%) of all standards that have been adopted are standards developed on the initiative of business. This optimization of procedures, increased transparency, involvement of all stakeholders in the development of standards and allowed more and more businesses to actively participate in this work. What does that mean? This means that standards become a requirement not only for safety, but also for quality and competitiveness.
A simple example. Standards in the field of underwater oil and gas production. Back in 2016, the Russian Federation did not have a single GOST in this area. We used foreign standards, standards of foreign companies, which, of course, limited the possibilities of producing equipment for underwater mining systems. This work has been actively started since 2017, and now we have more than 100 standards in this area developed with the participation of equipment manufacturers, oil and gas companies. And thus sovereignty in this area is fully secured. There are quite a lot of examples.
There is one more point I would like to focus on. This is an indicator of the applicability of the standard in the field of public procurement. We monitor on an ongoing basis: to what extent state corporations and departments use standards when describing procurement objects. By the end of 2021, 62% of all purchases carried out by state corporations and the state contain references to standards. And just five years ago they were less than 10%. Another evidence of the growing influence of standards.
M.Mishustin: The application of standards is also very important to prevent counterfeiting and falsification. Here, I know, you perform a very important function, in particular, you control the quality of fuel at our gas stations.
How is this work constructed? And in general, what is your department doing to prevent unsafe products from entering the Russian market?
A.Shalaev: Every year, the department checks more than a thousand oil products supply facilities, that is, gas stations. This work began in 2015. According to the results of 2015, more than 20% of all inspected objects had violations, whether by physico-chemical properties, whether by under-watering, and so on. By the end of 2021, we reached the figure of 4.9%. That is, in fact, the volume of counterfeit, falsified and simply inappropriate gasoline used by our citizens has decreased by more than four times during this time. And this is the result, I think, not only of control and supervisory measures, but also, first of all, of certain work that is being carried out by the department with gas stations. This includes the introduction of preventive and preventive measures, new requirements, explanatory conversations.
Last year, new legislation in the field of state and municipal supervision came into force. It provides, for example, monitoring procurement, which has proven itself well in the world as the so-called secret buyer mode. We have developed and certified a research methodology that will also help us to intensify activities in this area.
But, of course, we take into account that a moratorium on control and supervisory measures has been introduced in 2022. Therefore, now the department is fully focused on carrying out preventive measures, preventing offenses – both in terms of automobile fuel and in other areas that we are engaged in. These are, for example, wheeled vehicles. We had a large project to assess the quality of school buses, on child restraints in the car, where a huge number of inconsistencies were revealed. Our task now is to focus on explanatory, preventive measures.
M.Mishustin: Another very important area of the agency's activity is ensuring the accuracy of measurements and, of course, the availability of its own reference base, which is especially important now that we are developing our technological sovereignty. What is the agency doing in this area?
A.Shalaev: Mikhail Vladimirovich, in 2021, the Russian system for ensuring the uniformity of measurements for the first time in a long period took first place in the rating of the International Bureau of Weights and Measures for measuring capabilities. This recognition shows that our state primary standards not only correspond to the best world analogues, but in many ways surpass them in their technical level. Today, the reference base of the Russian Federation – and this is another point that I would like to note – is completely of its own design and production.
We use 160 state primary standards. And none of them are foreign-made. In the field of measurement uniformity, scientific metrology, full import independence is ensured. According to the amendments to the Constitution of the Russian Federation introduced in 2020, the reference base, the metric system are one of the elements of the sovereignty of the state. Therefore, we believe that the basis for technological sovereignty has been created here.
However, it should be noted that in addition to its own standards, a fairly large number of measuring instruments are used in the Russian market. In total, according to our expert estimates, 1.5 billion units of measuring instruments are circulating in the Russian Federation. Of these, 150 million units are in the field of state regulation, that is, requiring verification. The share of foreign production of measuring instruments is declining, but is still quite high. And here, thanks to the efforts of the Ministry of Industry and Trade of the Russian Federation, which fully supported us in this direction, active work on import substitution of measuring instruments has begun since 2021. In 2022, a plan for import substitution of metrological equipment was adopted. And according to a number of indicators, such as measuring the flow of liquids and gases, electrical quantities, we are already virtually completely providing enterprises with Russian equipment.
In the field of electronic measuring instruments, radiophysical, medical, of course, there is still something to strive for. Although there are more and more Russian measuring instruments appearing here.
In addition, we have launched a new digital service where any interested company can enter these indicators of foreign measuring instruments and it will immediately be shown similar Russian measuring instruments that are not inferior to them in their technical indicators, measuring capabilities.
M.Mishustin: You mentioned a digital service. Providing benchmarks and providing standards is primarily a service. And this service will be in demand by the industry when it is both in form, format, digitally correctly designed and properly rendered.
Please tell us how the work on the digital transformation of the department is going? And how do you interact in public-private partnership with your clients through digital technologies, digital services?
A.Shalaev: The digital agenda has really become a key one for the activities of Rosstandart over the past couple of years. And a number of services provided by Rosstandart have already been digitized.
For example, relevant amendments to the legislation have been introduced and implemented in practice. Thus, all statements of the type of measuring instruments, such as standard samples, are completely translated into a digital paperless format, a registry model is used, and an appropriate information system is used.
We have also moved away from paper certificates of verification of measuring instruments. Now there is a unified state information system "Arshin", created by us, where all the relevant data on the verification of all measuring instruments used by both enterprises and citizens, including the famous water meters, electric meters, are accumulated.
Last year, we digitized another type of activity that we are conducting, which is the coordination of revocable programs in the field of automotive wheeled vehicles. In the near future, already this year, we plan to launch this service through public services, when the owner of a vehicle, if his car falls under a recall campaign, receives an appropriate notification about it on public services. That is, it also facilitates interaction with consumers.
