As early as in the next five years, Russia runs a risk of lagging even further behind digital economy development leaders, from the current 5-8 to 15-20 years, warns The Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In order to prevent this scenario, the State and the private sector need to invest more in the Internet of Things, Big Data, development of IT products and services with a high export potential. Currently, the share of the digital economy in Russia's GDP has stagnated at the level of 2.1% compared with 5% on average in Europe and 6% in the United States. Today, in terms of the level of development of the digital economy, Russia occupies 39th out of 85 positions, according to BCG’s report “Russia-online. Catch up not to be left behind”. The current annual average growth rate of digitalization (24% according to BCG e-Intensity index) are inadequate, they need to be accelerated to avoid being further outpaced by the leaders and to ensure long-term competitiveness, according to the authors of the study. Otherwise, Russia’s current lagging behind by five to eight years from leading countries (South Korea, Denmark, United Kingdom, Sweden, Norway, and the Netherlands) will increase rapidly, and on a five-year horizon it can reach 15-20 years — a gap, “which will be very difficult to bridge”.
