The “Gift for Newborns” campaign, during which every Russian mother leaving maternity hospital will be handed with a newborn baby goods set, will support not only mothers and children, it will be supporting for the domestic textile and consumer goods industry. However, this should be a Federal project with a clear annual volume of work, a transparent mechanism of order placement, and a well detailed payment system.

It is easy to calculate that if more than 1.8 million babies were born in Russia in 2016, the textile industry has to provide accordingly not less than 1.8 million sets of quality clothes for newborns annually.

Such experiment of presenting newborn gift sets has been successfully implemented in Finland where a system of the government order and competitive selection of the best manufacturers has been established. This system provides manufacturing of quality goods for newborns on the one hand, and stimulates the domestic consumer goods industry on the other hand investing considerable funds into economy. Three major brands of baby clothing well-known around the world have emerged in Finland as a result of this program.

“For the industry to provide a clear answer to this question, we need a detailed order: what does the newborn baby gift box consist of, and what kind exactly and of what quality the goods should be? I.e. we need a technical requirements specification”, said the President of the Russian Union of Entrepreneurs of the Textile Industry Andrei Razbrodin.

The project effectiveness can be estimated only after the annual demand for these goods becomes clear, after the order placement details and the payment system are stipulated.

“If all these details are laid onto the industry itself, as it often happens with the state defense orders, then no one will need such kind of support. I doubt there is anyone in Russia willing to work on such a basis. All those small reserves previously accumulated by textile industry have been exhausted in the times of the economic crisis, and, of course, no one can pull off the government order all by himself. But, of course, we welcome the idea itself”, Andrei Razbrodin emphasized.

Irina Ivanova, representing the Ministry of Industry and Trade of Russia, also agreed that the textile industry enterprises of Russia are fully capable to carry out the newborn gift set campaign, and she said the Ministry for its part will provide all possible support to the project, for it to give stimulus to the domestic industry production, and for mothers and children to receive good quality and reliable domestic products.

Manufacturers of the goods for newborns are already ready to present their products for tender. The matter now depends on concrete resolution of the industry regulatory authorities.