Rostec will reduce the budget for the development of the blockchain to 28.4 billion rubles

The Rostec State Corporation announced a reduction in the budget for blockchain development in the country from 85 billionup to 28.4 billion rubles.

Rostec experts clarified that 9.5 billion rubles of this amount will be budgetary funds, and 18.9 billion will be extra-budgetary. It is planned to spend 650 million rubles on the implementation of blockchain in the product labeling system, experts want to allocate 1.17 billion rubles for integration into the healthcare sector, including for tracking medicines, 475 million rubles — in the housing and communal services sector and 350 million rubles are proposed to be spent on creating a service for accounting and distribution of utility payments. The remaining 475 million rubles are going to be spent on developing a solution for accounting for resource consumption.

According to Rostec, the introduction of domestictechnology can save about 500 billion rubles and raise up to 600 billion rubles in taxes. The corporation said that the document has already been sent for approval to the Ministry of Communications and the Analytical Center under the government of the country.

Back in May last year, Rostec Corporation proposed transferring state information systems to the blockchain, the costs would have amounted to 55–85 billion rubles.

According to Rostec specialists, thisbudget cuts are associated with the macroeconomic situation and changes in the perception of the latest technologies, given that Russian companies prefer to develop along the path with a minimal amount of risk. In addition, experts believe that the blockchain technology needs further refinement, and only large companies have the resources to implement it in Russia.

In June 2018, Rostec teamed up withMegafon, Gazprombank and the USM Group to work on projects in the digital economy, and in April last year, entered into a partnership with the Seldon group of companies to create digital centers to support the development of customer business.

</p></p>