MOSCOW, 09 February 2023. Russian Public Opinion Research Centre presents the findings of a survey on how the Russians perceive the activities of industrial plants.

 Focus on industry

The state of the Russian economy is largely due to the state of the industrial sector. To support the latter, the Russian government has launched the state program titled “Industrial Development and Improving Industrial Competitiveness”, which includes measures aimed to protect investments, information and personnel policies, et cet. The survey findings show that both economic entities and ordinary citizens show interest in the construction of industrial factories.

In February, 68% of Russians said they lived near an industrial facility. Thirty percent of Russians said there were no industrial facilities in their residential area or neighborhood.

Generally, Russia would perceive positively the idea to build an industrial facility in their residential area/ next to it (56%); the percentage of the positive assessments exceeds 3.5-fold the share of the negative ones (16%). Neutral views are reported by one in five respondents (21%) and every second young person (50%).

Construction of a factory: benefits and drawbacks

The creation of jobs is the major advantage of building a new industrial facility (80% of Russians). This is followed by far behind the development of social infrastructure (44%), higher living standards (41%), lower outflow of youth (41%) and additional tax revenues to the regional budget (40%). At the same time, the “decreased outflow of youth” is equally popular across all the age groups excluding the youngest one – the 18-24-year-olds (15% vs. 40-45% of those aged 25+). Every third respondent believes that the construction of a new industrial facility would enhance beautification in their town or city (32%). This means that new factories are largely seen as more employment opportunities, provision of new jobs by Russians. Only 6% of respondents see no positive consequences; this opinion is often shared by the residents of Moscow and St Petersburg (13%).  

Harm to environment is ranked first in the list of negative consequences caused by the construction of a new factory (51%). One in five respondents consider that this will lead to traffic congestion in the area (22%). A further 30% see no negative changes. Thus, the advantages of constructing a new facility outweigh the disadvantages, according to Russians.

Industry and environment

Although half of respondents consider the construction of a new industrial facility as a source of environmental pollution (51%), the perceptions of nature protection activities carried out by the industrial companies are likely to have improved over the recent two years. Every fourth respondent says that the industrial companies bring more good to the local environment (26%); over the recent two years those who share this opinion has tripled (8% in 2021). On the contrary, the number of those who oppose them (“it brings more harm”) has decreased by 8 p.p. over the same period (13% vs. 21% in 2021). Every tenth respondent considers that the activities of the industrial facilities are neither beneficial, nor harmful to the regional environment (10%). However the dominant viewpoint is still the following: the activities of the industrial facilities are equally beneficial and harmful to the environment: 42% in 2023; 33% in 2021.

VCIOM-Sputnik Russian nationwide telephone survey was conducted 3 February, 2023. A total of 1,600 Russians aged 18 and over took part in the survey. Survey method: telephone interviews, stratified random sample based on a complete list of mobile phone numbers in use in Russia. The data were weighted according to social and demographic characteristics. The margin of error at a 95% confidence level does not exceed 2.5%. In addition to sampling error, minor changes to the wording of questions and different circumstances arising during the fieldwork can introduce bias into the survey.

Key effectiveness indicators, survey of February 3, 2023:  cooperation rate (CR)* = 0.8313; minimum response rate (MRR)** = 0.0203; response rate (RR)*** = 0.0805. Calculations are based on the corporate standard: https://profi.wciom.ru/principy_standarty/korporativnyj-standart-po-izmereniyu-rezultativnosti-oprosov-sputnik-vciom/ * CR: the number of complete interviews divided by the sum of: а) complete interviews and b) non-interviews with eligible respondents. ** MRR: the number of complete interviews divided by the sum of: а) complete interviews, b) interrupted interviews after successful screening and c) all the respondents where it is unknown whether they meet the selected criteria or not. ** RR is calculated in the same way as MRR, with the only difference that the number of respondents with unknown eligibility decreases proportional to the percentage of eligible cases in the total number of respondents with identified eligibility or non-eligibility.