- Category
- Latest news
Russia Talks Self-Reliance, But 98% of Its Machine Tools Bought in 2024 Are Foreign-Made
- Authors
![Photo of Vlad Litnarovych]( "Photo of Vlad Litnarovych")
Despite the Kremlin’s push for “import substitution,” Russia remains heavily dependent on foreign machine tools, with 98.3% of the equipment purchased in 2024 coming from abroad—even as domestic production more than doubled over the last five years, according to data from consulting firm ATK+ cited by Russian media Vedomosti on April 22.
Russian companies purchased 693,000 machine tools in 2024, down nearly a third from the 1 million peak recorded in 2023. Of these, just 1.7% were made domestically.
That figure comes despite a significant increase in local production: from 5,300 units in 2020 to 11,360 in 2024.
A source at a Russian engineering firm told Vedomosti that 71% of all imported machine tools in 2024 came from China, accounting for $1.61 billion in sales.
Just a few years ago—in 2020 and 2021—China’s share of Russia’s industrial machinery imports was no more than 20–25%.
-3336ca785df0ebe3e84fa8baef71d263.jpg)
Meanwhile, imports from India skyrocketed 27.5-fold from 2020 to reach $55 million in 2024.
At the same time, due to Western sanctions, imports of German equipment—once 15–20% of Russia’s market—have nearly disappeared. Japanese and South Korean machines have followed a similar trend.
Russian producers of CNC (computer numerical control) machine tools are under mounting pressure from cheaper imports from China, India, and Turkey, according to a spokesperson for Rostec. “To scale up production, manufacturers need stable, high-volume orders,” the spokesperson said.
Alexey Lapikov, managing partner at ATK+, noted that Russia has made progress in CNC, laser, and metalworking tool segments over the past three to five years. But the country still struggles with a key issue: how many of these machines are made from Russian components?
“Many domestic machine tools are assembled using foreign parts,” said Olga Kvashenkina, CEO of electronics development firm SND Global.
“Because Russian manufacturers still rely on imported production equipment, they can’t yet compete with Chinese brands on quality or price,” added Yulia Vlazhnova, an expert with TechNet NTI.
In 2024, Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin announced a plan to “revive the machine tool industry,” pledging roughly $1.4 billion over the next three years to modernize domestic machine tool enterprises.
At its height during the Soviet era, Russia had a fleet of around 3 million machine tools across all industries, noted Svetlana Vodyanova, CEO of Jason & Partners Consulting.
Earlier, reports emerged that Russia acquired over 22,000 computer numerical control (CNC) machines, along with essential components and consumables worth $18.2 billion, between 2023 and the first seven months of 2024.
-c6522ae9e5320af1cc92504c0aaa1b34.png)
