A new federal project entitled " Small and medium-sized entrepreneurship and support for an individual entrepreneurial initiative " was discussed within the framework of the Russian Federation ' s Commission on the Efficient and Competitive Economy. The Deputy Minister for Economic Development of Russia, Tatiana Ilushnikov, spoke about the approaches to its implementation.

The planning of support measures until 2030 should take into account the challenges that the economy will face and which will have an impact on the SME sector. These factors include supply economy, technological sovereignty, the labour market situation.

According to the Deputy Minister, the main task of the Ministry of Economic Development of Russia over the next five years is to shift the emphasis from quantitative indicators of the SME sector to qualitative. An indicator of change will be an increase in the income of one employee of the SME subject, which should exceed GDP growth.

" Today, the SME sector illustrates that it is prepared not only for quantitative growth but also for quality. In Russia, more than 20 per cent of the country ' s high-productivity enterprises are operating, where one third of all workers are already employed. More and more small companies are moving to the middle segment: 20,800 medium-sized enterprises are now registered, the maximum since 2016. We will continue to work on structural changes in the SME sector. To that end, it was necessary to increase the number of companies in the most productive sectors, the sustainability and life expectancy of new enterprises, encourage the transition from micro-enterprises to small ones, from small to medium-sized enterprises, noted Tatiana Ilyushnikov.

On the basis of these objectives, the Deputy Minister outlined tasks that would include a new federal project. Improving access to financial resources for companies from priority industries will be a key element. This can be achieved through the marketing of key financial support tools for these industries: concessional lending and leasing programmes, guarantee support, micro loans and support for issuers. The Ministry of Economic Development of Russia will also continue to promote the access of entrepreneurs to the procurement of major customers and the transition of small and medium-sized businesses to the SME+ segment. Other tasks include increasing the coverage of services and infrastructure support for SME entities: expanding the network of prom parks and technoparks, combining all support infrastructure under my business brand, introducing new services on the SME/RF digital platform.

Further work is needed to create conditions for the easy start of SMEs and to increase the duration of their activities, and Tatiana Ilushnikov is of the view.

" Despite the substantial simplification of business start-up, the almost complete removal of administrative and other barriers to entry remains a high risk of closing new companies in their first two years of operation. In doing so, if the business used dominance, its survival is twice as high as that of SMEs that did not use it, so we will continue to increase business coverage and develop support infrastructure. Already today, entrepreneurs have received more than 3.4 million services in My Business Centres throughout Russia, and the Deputy Minister emphasized.

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Entrepreneurs ' support is provided through the Maloy and Middle Entrepreneurship Project
Source: freepik.com