A two-day printed circuit board conference was held 9/24 and 9/25 at LenExpo in Saint Petersburg Russia. Approximately 175 people attended of which about 100 were locals. This meeting and companion trade show were co-sponsored by the EIPC (European PCB trade organization) and a Russian media group. I had the honor of being the keynote speaker on global business conditions.

Russia is in a rebuilding mode regarding its domestic electronics industry. Here is the text from two of my charts:

Russia's Electronic Industry Growth (recent news headlines)

• Russia to make available $25 billion for technology
• Russia's lowering of import duties a positive signal to Jabil and Flextronics
• Russia-based manufacturers to receive boost from expected component duty cancellation
• Eastern Europe, including Russia, is the fastest-growing television market in the world
• Elcoteq will not sell St. Petersburg plant to Flextronics. It starts looking for contracts itself
• Samsung Electronics opens $137M TV plant in Russia
• Arrow Electronics to expand in Eastern Europe's growing market

Challenges (facing Russia)

• Fluctuating oil prices and economic dependence on petroleum
• Inflation
• High real estate prices
• Unstable stock market
• Capital not always readily available
• Shortage of executive talent

Russian PCB Industry

The Russian printed circuit board industry is small by world standards with many PCBs imported from China rather than being produced locally. Two separate Russian speakers estimated that in 2008 Russia would consume about US$ 400 million of bare PCBs with about 60% imported and 40% ($160 million) made locally. I discussed these figures with various meeting attendees. One person commented that the $160 million of local PCB production was low since it missed some captive production by domestic producers of military electronics... My estimate is that total Russian-produced PCBs will be in the range of $200 to $250 million in 2008.

Attached is my entire keynote presentation.