MOSCOW, September 29. /TASS/. About forty-five new apparel brands will appear in Russia this year and about a half of them will be Russian ones, said Russian Minister of Industry and Trade Anton Alikhanov during the fourth BRICS+ Fashion Summit.

"This year, we will see the emergence of new brands - just over 40; we estimate it to be within the range of 40 to 45, and about half of them will be Russian," he said during the session at the summit.

This primarily refers to narrow-niche domestic brands, like high-tech clothing or items featuring traditional elements from various ethnicities or specific regions, Alikhanov noted.

Existing brands are currently actively competing with one another for consumer preferences, primarily in the online space, and artificial intelligence is increasingly being used in this competitive race to improve production efficiency and for promotion, the minister said. "We believe this will also be a significant step toward the individualization of apparel and products that you want to buy -without even leaving home to visit stores, or sometimes without even browsing a marketplace, but essentially placing an order essentially as a designer," he noted.