Rigid monetary conditions have led to adjustments to the sectoral priorities of small and medium-sized businesses. Science and technology SMEs have been able to deprive construction leaders of new lending volumes, which corresponds to changes in government support priorities. However, both sectors have demonstrated a high level of risk due to debt burdens, lack of cost-effectiveness and relatively high shares of lost SMEs, and have been counted in SPARC-Interfax. Overall, the prospects for increased lending to SMEs remain high, with storage facilities, manufactured metals, machinery and equipment.

Overall, new SME loans increased by 40 per cent in 2023 to 16.2 trillion roubles in 2024 and remained one third higher than in the first quarter of 2023. The high cost of loans, however, adjusted sectoral priorities, noted SPARC-Interfax analysts. While in 2023 there was a marked increase in the share of construction and real estate operations (32 per cent of new lending), the first quarter of 2024 resulted in a professional, scientific and technical activity by the lending leader: SMEs in this area increased their share of total new loans by 2.1 percentage points to 19.7 per cent. This is due to the priorities of the dominance: the authorities are actively promoting innovation by focusing on the aid sector.
A more detailed analysis of the sector shows that the main flow of new loans has been directed towards small engineering, technical testing, research and analysis companies.

They accounted for more than two thirds of new lending to science and technology enterprises.
The SME directly deviated (16.7 per cent). However, high credit rates are likely to continue with industrial mortgage programmes and government funding for large rows, which will affect construction SMEs, as such enterprises are often only masked under small businesses and are large or subcontracted projects.

The relatively high volume of the credit portfolio remains for wholesale trade (the share of new loans is 9.3 per cent). The contribution of the remaining SME areas is small: warehouses (1.3 per cent), manufacture of finished metal products (0.8 per cent), manufacture of machinery and equipment (0.4 per cent). However, according to SPARC-Interfax, these three segments have high credit potential. Less than a quarter of SMEs in these segments are marked by a high-risk index that takes into account due diligence, financial risk, pay discipline, and the likelihood of liquidation or bankruptcy. The largest share of SMEs with the " High Risk " index is in the same science, technology and construction sectors, 42 per cent and 35 per cent respectively. Risks relate to the high share of loss-making enterprises, the high debt burden and difficulties in managing receivables.

However, as long as the quality of the SME credit portfolio remains high, the rate of debt arrears slowed from 8 per cent in the fourth quarter of 2023 to 6 per cent in the first quarter of 2024, the proportion of arrears declined steadily (5% at the beginning of 2024, 5.6 per cent at the beginning of 2023, 8.8 per cent in 2022, 11 per cent in 2021).

***

Entrepreneurs ' support is carried out within the framework of the " Small and Medium Enterprise " project.