Innovation

Since 2012, the Electronic Trading Platform of Gazprombank has served as Russia’s largest e-procurement marketplace, processing trillions of rubles in tenders for major industrial players like Gazprom. But around 2024–2025, it launched a dedicated international development unit to address a critical gap: as traditional Western supply chains became unreliable, Russian companies urgently needed new partners, while small and medium-sized enterprises from Asia, the Middle East and Africa lacked the resources to enter this market due to bureaucratic complexity, language barriers and payment uncertainties.

The innovation lies not in technology alone, but in accessibility. ETP actively onboards foreign suppliers, provides multilingual guidance through compliance procedures and integrates secure, cross-border payment mechanisms that work within both Russian and international regulatory frameworks. Most significantly, suppliers can participate without establishing a local legal entity (a requirement that typically blocks SMEs due to cost and time). This design directly advances UN Sustainable Development Goal 8, particularly Target 8.3, which calls for policies that support entrepreneurship and access to markets. By enabling a food exporter in Egypt or an industrial component manufacturer in India to win contracts with major Russian corporations, the platform creates stable revenue streams that support local employment, business expansion and long-term economic resilience in their home communities.

At the same time, the entire model embodies SDG 17. Every transaction relies on structured collaboration between buyers, suppliers, financial institutions and digital support teams across borders. Rather than relying on informal networks, ETP GPB builds trust through transparent rules, auditable processes and shared digital infrastructure - exactly the kind of multi-stakeholder partnership envisioned in Target 17.16. In a fragmented world, this is more than trade facilitation. It is a practical framework for sustained, rules-based cooperation. Beyond matchmaking, ETP GPB is now packaging its digital expertise as a licensable solution, offering other countries a replicable model to make public procurement more inclusive, efficient and globally connected.

Inspiration

The inspiration behind ETP GPB’s shift toward international procurement came not from a strategic forecast or a tech trend, but from repeated exposure to how fragile global trade can be and how quickly small businesses suffer when it breaks down. Angelina Morgun, Head of International Development at the Electronic Trading Platform of Gazprombank, had firsthand experience with this during her nearly five years at the Russian Export Center, particularly in 2020, when the pandemic froze logistics, halted customs processing and left many exporters unable to ship goods.

At the time, her team responded by launching weekly online sessions to explain how businesses could pivot to digital sales by participating in foreign tenders, listing products on international marketplaces like Alibaba or Amazon and using e-commerce to reach buyers without physical presence. These webinars were practical: they covered payment methods, documentation and platform registration. The response was immediate. One session during the “Made in Russia” online forum in 2020 drew as many viewers as the plenary speech by the Prime Minister. That showed her that demand was not the problem - access was.

When she moved to ETP GPB in late 2024, a new set of disruptions emerged: sanctions, payment blockages and the sudden loss of Western suppliers forced Russian industrial companies to look elsewhere. At the same time, potential partners in Asia, the Middle East, and Africa faced their own barriers - complex registration rules, language gaps and uncertainty about how Russian procurement worked. She realized the platform could play the same role it had during the pandemic not as a passive marketplace, but as an active enabler.

As she explained in our interview: “In foreign economic activity, everything changes constantly. What matters most is being able to rely on your partners - even across borders.” This was about trust built through clear procedures and consistent support. Another key idea followed: “When you bring the right people together under clear rules, you can solve almost any problem.”

That principle guided concrete decisions: allowing foreign suppliers to register without a local legal entity, providing documentation in multiple languages and creating a dedicated support team for onboarding. The goal was to make it work for those who had been excluded, because they lacked access. The innovation grew out of real problems and it stayed focused on one thing: making cross-border trade possible, even when the world seemed determined to stop it.

Overall impact

In the short term, starting in late 2024 and throughout 2025, the international development unit at ETP GPB enabled dozens of small and medium-sized enterprises from countries like China, India, the UAE, Egypt, Turkey and Vietnam to successfully participate in Russian procurement tenders for the first time. Suppliers won contracts for industrial components, food products and technical services, often competing directly with larger, established firms. For Russian buyers, including major energy and infrastructure companies, this meant immediate diversification of supply sources at a time when traditional Western channels had become unreliable. The platform’s built-in transparency features, such as timestamped bids, publicly visible evaluation criteria and full audit trails, also reduced information asymmetry and lowered the risk of informal practices, making procurement more predictable in a highly volatile environment.

The long-term impact extends beyond individual transactions. ETP GPB’s model has attracted formal interest from government agencies and development institutions in Southeast Asia and the Middle East that are looking to modernize their own public procurement systems. What makes the platform appealing is not just its technology, but its design principles: it operates without requiring foreign vendors to open local legal entities, supports multi-currency settlements and keeps data under national jurisdiction — features that align with growing demands for digital sovereignty. Evidence of traction includes a steady increase in the number of registered foreign suppliers (now numbering in the hundreds), high rates of repeat participation and documented inquiries from at least three foreign governments about licensing the platform’s core architecture.  

Most significantly, what began as an emergency response to supply chain disruptions has evolved into a replicable framework for inclusive trade. It demonstrates that digital procurement platforms can do more than cut costs. They can actively expand economic opportunity for businesses that lack political connections or financial resources. In a world where global trade is increasingly fragmented, this approach offers a structured, rules-based inclusion.

Business benefit

ETP GPB’s expansion into international procurement and its efforts to adapt its digital infrastructure for broader use have delivered clear strategic and financial benefits. The platform has moved beyond reliance on domestic transaction fees by introducing new revenue streams, including paid onboarding support for foreign suppliers, premium assistance with compliance and documentation and early-stage discussions about licensing its procurement technology to interested parties abroad. These services are designed to be scalable and align with growing demand for sovereign, non-Western digital trade solutions.

This shift has also opened new functional and geographic horizons. Originally built for Russian industrial buyers, ETP GPB now actively facilitates connections with supplier communities across Asia, the Middle East, and North Africa. This engagement has prompted the development of a modular version of its core platform — one that could potentially be adapted for use in other countries seeking to digitize public or corporate procurement. While full commercial deployment abroad has not yet occurred, the model has attracted formal interest from several governments, positioning ETP GPB as more than a national utility.

Internally, the initiative has strengthened team cohesion and talent retention. The creation of the international development unit in late 2024 led to new roles for specialists in cross-border payments, multilingual support, and international regulatory frameworks. Staff now work on projects with tangible global impact, such as helping a Turkish food exporter navigate registration or enabling an Indian manufacturer to participate in tenders without a local entity. This sense of purpose has increased engagement and reduced turnover among technical teams.

Most importantly, the platform has reinforced its status as critical national infrastructure. By ensuring that major clients like Gazprom can maintain supply chains despite external disruptions, ETP GPB has secured long-term institutional trust. Regulators and state-linked enterprises now view it as a strategic asset for economic resilience, a position that ensures continued relevance, stable demand and policy support in the years ahead.

Social and environmental benefit

The primary societal benefit of ETP GPB’s international procurement model is greater economic inclusion. Small and medium-sized enterprises from countries like Vietnam, Turkey, Egypt, India and the UAE can now participate in high-value tenders with major Russian industrial buyers without needing local legal representation, expensive intermediaries or personal connections. This lowers a critical barrier that has historically excluded smaller players from global supply chains. For a family-run food exporter in Turkey or an electronics assembler in Vietnam, winning even one contract can mean stable income, job retention and business growth — direct contributions to UN Sustainable Development Goal 8. At the same time, by giving marginalized businesses fair access to large markets, the platform helps reduce global economic disparities, aligning with Goal 10 (Reduced Inequalities).

On the environmental side, digitizing procurement eliminates paper-based processes, reduces redundant paperwork and minimizes the need for physical meetings or courier services — all of which lower the carbon footprint of trade operations. While not a climate-focused initiative, efficiency gains contribute to more sustainable administrative practices.

More broadly, ETP GPB strengthens institutional trust by enforcing transparent, rules-based procedures: every bid is timestamped, evaluation criteria are public and decisions are auditable. This reduces opportunities for informal practices and builds predictability in a volatile trade environment. Crucially, the model is designed to be replicable. If adopted by other countries, particularly those seeking alternatives to Western-dominated systems, it could help modernize public procurement, integrate more SMEs into formal economies and promote accountable governance. The innovation’s power lies not in disruption, but in redesign: creating systems that work fairly for more people, not just the well-connected.

Interview

Angelina Morgun, Head of Division, International Development