Location of Russian Manufacturing Subsidiaries of Foreign Corporations Opened in 2012–2018

Factories owned by foreign corporations retain vital positions in many industries of the Russian economy, including car manufacturing, food production, machinery, construction materials production, and pharmaceuticals. Using the secondary data sources, we had identified all new factories, opened by foreign multinational corporations in Russia in 2012–2018. Almost 80% of the 261 factories opened in the last seven years are located in just 20 Russian administrative regions. Moscow (city and oblast), Kaluga oblast, St. Petersburg and Leningrad oblast, the Republic of Tatarstan, Lipetsk oblast, Nizhny Novgorod oblast and Ulyanovsk oblast are the leaders in accommodating foreign industrial investments. Although consumer goods production develops further, foreign investments increase in B2B sector, with emphasis on manufacturing of details, components, additives, outsourcing services, not the output of finished products. The majority of foreign investors preferred special economic zones and industrial parks as territories for installation of new facilities. Proximity to suppliers, availability of the local market, preferred tax regime, guaranteed infrastructure and articulated care of the local authority about the needs of foreign investors are the main factors that determine the choice of the region for industrial investments of foreign corporations. There is also a relatively large segment of ‘pioneers’ that build new factories in the regions ignored by the main portion of foreign investors. The number of such ‘pioneers’ is especially high for the companies that opened their first factory in Russia in 2012–2018