On Monday, Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin approved the Strategy for the Development of the Creative Economy through 2036 at an operational meeting with deputy prime ministers. The document envisages doubling the sector, which includes software production, traditional crafts, film production and gastronomy. The Russian market for creative industries, however, remains concentrated in the country’s largest urban agglomerations, while the IT sector generates most of the added value, experts note.
Opening the meeting, Mikhail Mishustin announced a decision to allocate more than RUB 300 mln to Russian regions to support rural healthcare workers. The funds will go to 18 regions, including Adygea, Bashkortostan, Tatarstan and Khakassia, as well as Krasnodar, Perm and Primorye territories, and Astrakhan, Bryansk, Volgograd, Kirov and Leningrad regions, among others.
The money will be used for compensation payments provided to healthcare workers under the Zemsky Doctor and Zemsky Paramedic programmes. Doctors and mid-level medical specialists participating in the programmes receive a one-off payment of between 500,000 and RUB 2 mln, depending on their level of education and the particular area where they take up employment
‘This decision will make it possible to attract around 500 medical professionals, including doctors, paramedics, nurses and midwives, to healthcare organisations in rural areas, small towns and remote settlements. The quality and availability of medical care for residents of these areas will improve,’ the prime minister said at the meeting with deputy prime ministers. He also stressed that the government would continue to do everything necessary to ensure that people across the country have access to qualified and timely medical treatment.
The government also approved the Strategy for the Development of the Creative Economy through 2036 on Monday. Creative industries include film and animation, music, fashion, design, architecture, advertising and public relations, media and new media, IT, video games, traditional arts and crafts, and museums.
The key goal of the strategy is to increase the creative economy’s share of GDP from 4.2% in 2025 to 7.7% in 2036. The government also aims to increase the share of creative-industry exports in total exports from the current 1.9% to 4%. The number of companies and individual entrepreneurs working in creative industries is expected to rise by 22% between 2025 and 2036. At least 45 Russian regions are also expected to introduce support measures for the creative sector. Another notable target is to increase public awareness of creative industries and Russian creative brands from the current 32% to 71.6% by 2036.
The strategy also places particular emphasis on training workers for the sector. The launch of new companies and organisations will require expanded training at colleges and universities. A separate section of the strategy is devoted to this area. By 2036, the number of graduates from secondary and higher professional education institutions with creative-industry qualifications is expected to increase by almost a quarter compared with 2025.
More than 4.5 mln people are currently employed in various areas of the creative economy, or 6.2% of the entire working-age population, according to estimates. Mishustin said the government would need not only to revise educational programmes in higher and secondary education, but also to create a system for rapidly updating the skills of professionals already in work, including through retraining and further professional development.
The Economic Development Ministry has been tasked with drawing up a plan of specific measures for staffing the creative industries, as well as other areas covered by the strategy, and submitting it to the government in March next year.
The government’s targets for increasing the creative economy’s share of GDP appear achievable. ‘According to the Economic Development Ministry, our creative sector is developing faster than other sectors. In 2017, the creative economy contributed just 2.8% of GDP, or RUB 2.3 tn. By 2025, that figure had already reached 4.3%, equivalent to RUB 8.2 tn,’ Sergei Novikov, head of the Presidential Directorate for Public Projects, said in July.
The strategy itself says that between 2020 and 2025, the gross value added (GVA) generated by creative industries increased by 55.8% in real terms, excluding inflation, while the country’s GDP as a whole grew by 15.1%. In other words, the creative economy is growing almost four times faster than the economy as a whole, the document says.
Young people and people with higher education account for a larger share of employment in the creative industries. According to Novikov, young people make up 32% of workers in creative industries, compared with 28% across the economy, while workers with higher education account for 56%, compared with 35% across the economy
There is also a pronounced regional divide. Creative industries are concentrated mainly in the country’s largest agglomerations. According to Rosstat, Moscow accounted for 56% of GVA in 2024. Overall, almost 80% of the total GVA generated by creative industries was concentrated in 10 regions.
The HSE Institute for Statistical Studies and Economics of Knowledge reported that more than 193,000 creative-industry organisations were operating in Russia at the end of 2024, with almost 16,000 new creative businesses established during the year. More than half of the creative businesses established in 2024 were in Moscow and the Moscow region. While the capital regions are becoming increasingly attractive to creative businesses, the contribution of other cities with populations above 1 mln and other regions has been steadily declining. In 2020, more than half, or 51%, of creative-industry companies were established in other million-plus cities and other regions. By 2024, their share had fallen to 40%, according to the HSE.
‘Despite the overall increase in the number of creative-industry organisations in Russia, their growth has slowed in most regions. This may be because strategic planning processes for developing the creative economy have not yet been completed at either the federal or regional level, and because there are no clearly defined incentives for creating new businesses in the creative industries. Another likely factor, which is economic rather than industry-specific, is the high cost of borrowing,’ said Viktoria Boos, head of the HSE Laboratory for Creative Industries Research.
Economists added that even when a creative business is established in a region, it is likely to move to one of the capital regions after three to six years of successful operation. One in three creative-industry companies changes its registered location, compared with one in five across the economy as a whole, the HSE noted (see Nezavisimaya Gazeta, June 25, 2025).
Investment in the creative sector exceeded RUB 1 tn in 2024, while average annual investment growth between 2019 and 2024 exceeded 30%, according to the HSE. Half of all creative-sector investment goes into intellectual property (IP). In 2024, IP accounted for 45.8% of total investment, six times the corresponding figure for the economy as a whole. ‘At the same time, 85.3% of investment in IP assets in the creative industries is distributed in almost equal proportions between software and databases, 44.6%, and originals of entertainment, literary and artistic works, 40.7%,’ the researchers reported.
ORIGINAL: NG/Creative Economy Share to Be Raised to 7% of GDP
