Nanotechnology is coming
Tatiana Romanova, Quote.ru
Nanotechnology is becoming more and more competitive compared to traditional sectors of the economy, therefore, special hopes are placed on the innovative sphere as one of the "pillars" of the future highly efficient economy. According to experts' forecasts, by 2020, many ideas that are currently at the research stage in this area will be implemented in commercial products.
Analysts agree on the main thing, nanotechnology can be a successful industry for the Russian Federation if it is possible to quickly eliminate the lag in the development of this area from a number of countries (in particular Japan and the USA). And this can be done, according to experts, in a relatively short time (about 5 years), subject to the intensive implementation of existing foreign developments and own projects, as well as the effective development of the nanoindustry.
According to the analyst of FC "Otkritie" Valery Piven, the industry will be successful if there is demand for the products it offers. And by itself, this demand should be in harmony with the needs of the economy as a whole. Here it is necessary to take into account the nature of the industry, the expert emphasizes, since venture capital is a type of activity where the appearance of a positive result can be predicted only with one or another probability. "It takes a lot of time for the return from nanotechnology as an industry to become significant across the economy, and the industry itself to determine the general vector of its development. So far, the success of nanotechnology is the merit of only individual companies," the expert comments on the situation. "As far as I know, the state financing of the industry has not been affected by the crisis. Another question is how fast the results of the investment will be in order to start getting the expected benefits from it," notes V.Piven.
In addition, according to the analyst, there is a certain shortage of personnel in the industry. "After all, it is quite difficult to "cross" advanced science and technology of creating and managing a company. Russia is at the very beginning of the road here, while talented managers and other specialists are in demand in other industries (where, in general, they are also not in excess)," the expert emphasizes.
Representatives of the nanotechnology industry will definitely appear on the market. This is one of the traditional ways to "discourage" investments, V. believes.Piven. And the founders of companies themselves are usually interested in capitalizing on their developments. "Most likely, it will be a set of companies of small and medium capitalization, the changes in quotations of which will be quite peculiar (for example, they will be characterized by increased volatility). However, their appearance on the market is not a matter of the near future. It may take 5-10 years for this sector to take its place in the stock market," the analyst believes.
"In a crisis, investors prefer to enter into more reliable, more liquid assets, such as currency, precious metals, real estate. Therefore, Hi-tech, in particular nanotechnologies, which contain a significant share of additional technological risks, are considered as not too favorable for the current time, when there are enough risks already," says Alexey Belyakov, head of the analytical department of I2BF VC.
If we talk about this area on a worldwide scale, then now it's not up to "high-tech", the expert emphasizes. "But the situation in Russia is somewhat different, since we have the Rosnanotechnologies state Corporation, which has a mandate to invest in nanotechnology," A. Belyakov notes. In his opinion, thanks to the creation of such a state corporation, at the moment the Russian Federation has a significant chance to eliminate the backlog in the field of nanotechnology. Now Rusnano has a unique opportunity to buy the latest developments in this field or companies whose market value has fallen abroad at relatively low prices, and adapt it in Russia, possibly in the form of joint companies.
The possibility of organizing a successful business based on the development of these technologies and the entry of companies into the stock market exists, A.Belyakov believes. In his opinion, it is mainly related to the acquisition of advanced foreign technology. "Since domestic developments are mostly at the concept stage, the most reasonable way now is to buy technologies abroad. And in the long term, and it is known that the traditional cycle of venture projects from the idea to the stock exchange is 6-7 years, there is potentially the possibility of the emergence of notable players in the market, including in Russia," the expert concluded.
Dmitry Konovalov, Vice President, senior analyst at UniCredit Securities, believes that if real ideas appear in the industry that will interest investors and need large-scale financing, then, of course, there will be IPOs and new chips, as happened with the development of computer technology and the Internet.
Nanotechnology is the technology of manufacturing super–microscopic structures from the smallest particles of matter. Nanotechnology provides an opportunity to create and modify objects that include components with dimensions less than 100 nm, of fundamentally new quality. The value of such systems is that it is possible to integrate them into fully functioning macro-scale systems.
The state Corporation "Russian Nanotechnology Corporation" (Rusnano), founded in 2007, provides financing for promising projects in the field of nanotechnology. According to the corporation, priority is given to projects that are at the stage as close as possible to entering the market.
In January 2008, the project "Nanoindustry Development Programs in the Russian Federation until 2015" was reviewed and largely approved at a meeting of the Government of the Russian Federation. The program was finalized with the participation of a number of federal executive authorities and organizations, and re-submitted by the Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian Federation to the Government of the Russian Federation.
In May 2008, the Government of the Russian Federation instructed the Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian Federation, the Ministry of Economic Development of the Russian Federation, the Ministry of Industry and Energy of the Russian Federation and the Ministry of Finance of the Russian Federation, together with federal executive authorities and organizations, to ensure the implementation of the presented program. The program outlines the main stages and guidelines for the development of nanotechnology until 2015.
Portal "Eternal youth" www.vechnayamolodost.ru13.02.2009