RUSSIA, September 5 - Mikhail Mishustin: “The number of small and medium-sized enterprises remains at a fairly stable level: about 6 million. The number of employees is approaching 30 million. This area has the potential for real growth, primarily as a contribution to the gross domestic product.”

Mikhail Mishustin’s opening remarks:

Good afternoon, colleagues.

Today we will discuss the further development of small and medium-sized enterprises, which has always been a priority area for the Government.

This is a sector where enterprising people can start their own businesses. It addresses very important tasks for the state, such as creating new jobs and forming a comfortable environment through various services. It is in small businesses where many innovations are put into practice and are embodied in high-quality goods and services.

In line with the President’s instructions, the Government is implementing a relevant national project in this area, which is aimed, among other things, at simplifying all procedures related to the launch of one's own enterprise, as well as forming an integrated acceleration system for the growth of companies.

Extensive support infrastructure has been created, including in the regions, such as My Business centres, technology parks, a separate development institute, a specialised bank, a specialised digital platform, assistance to exporters, and other system-wide measures.

There is a wide range of financial incentives such as loans, guarantees, and grants. Incentives for increasing demand have been strengthened through the purchases of state-owned companies and promotion on marketplaces.

The system of control and supervision has been substantially changed. Prevention began to play a leading role, namely the use of a risk-based approach in order to reduce the administrative burden on businesses.

During the difficult period of the pandemic, we helped many businesses keep their employees by replenishing the wage fund. You know the relevant presidential initiatives.

As a result of the measures taken and despite the unprecedented external pressure on Russia, this sector is continuing to grow.

The number of small and medium-sized businesses is remaining at a fairly stable level: about 6 million. This is more that at the beginning of the post-pandemic 2021, when the economy started to recover.

The dynamics are even better in employment. This is the highest number since we received the presidential executive order on the national development goals until 2030 in 2020.

Now we need to move on. This area has the potential for real growth, primarily as a contribution to the gross domestic product.

At the St Petersburg International Economic Forum, the President set a goal to implement a policy aimed at developing supply-side economics. This means that our work should place more emphasis on creating production organisations, especially in priority sectors, in order to meet growing domestic demand.

Today the vast majority of SMEs are micro-enterprises. For now, their contribution to the economy is not that high. I wish it was higher, of course. Therefore, it is important to encourage positive dynamics within the sector, starting from micro and small companies and beyond, all the way up to the SME+ category.

At a related government commission meeting, we agreed to discuss ideas in a broader format, with representatives of small businesses and the business community.

Today I propose defining the key tasks for the development of small and medium-sized businesses until 2030.

The Ministry of Economic Development is working on a new package of support measures. Minister Maxim Reshetnikov will elaborate on this today.

We will also discuss how friendly and useful the MSP.RF digital platform turned out to be for small and medium-sized businesses. I issued instructions to conduct a survey on this to evaluate how convenient and user-friendly it is. I would like to ask you to report on the results of this today.