For the first time in a long time, actual revenue indicators showed up in the growth of SME sentiment

The latest data on business activity of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) indicate continued optimism in the sector. According to a survey of 1.8 thousand companies, the RSBI index (jointly calculated by PSB, Opora Rossii and NAFI) in May amounted to 53.7 points after 54.1 points in April and 53.5 points in March. For the first time in a long time, actual revenue indicators showed up in the growth of SME sentiment: sales growth in May reached its maximum since the summer of 2021, so far the component has grown only on expectations of future revenue. Positive dynamics was reported by 16% of respondents (14% in April) – however, the share of optimists regarding future revenue decreased from 32% to 29%. As a result, the sales component as a whole is still in the negative zone (47.4 points against 46.2 in April).

The rest of the components – personnel and credit availability, investment activity – showed a decrease in May. It should be noted that the slowdown in investment activity after rapid growth in recent months has stabilized: in May, 19% of enterprises increased investments against 20% a month earlier, while plans remain unchanged (28% of respondents still plan to increase investments, 4% plan to reduce investments). However, these plans may not come true due to a shortage of personnel in the market: due to a lack of resources, small companies are not able to compete with large ones for specialists. So far, the share of SMEs that have expanded their staff has remained stable (12%), but fewer companies create demand for new employees (24% vs. 27%), while they intend to optimize staff a little less (5% vs. 6%).

The pressure on investment activity will also be exerted by the availability of loans: satisfied demand decreased from 27% to 25% due to the share of those who managed to get a loan. The situation with refusals worsened – their share increased from 9% in April to 13% in May.

Under such conditions, business activity becomes more sensitive to unstable revenue dynamics. Microenterprises responded best to its growth. Medium business sensitively reacted to the reduction in the availability of loans – its index fell from 60.9 points to 53.9 points (including due to the less willingness of companies to expand). Negative dynamics due to a decrease in the availability of credit is typical for services and manufacturing – the latter keeps activity due to the expansion of the staff for the implementation of the issue.

Diana Galieva