RBC learned about the difficulties of electronics manufacturers in obtaining soft loans

Electronics manufacturers have encountered problems obtaining loans at a reduced rate of 5%. About it informed RBC with reference to market participants.

According to the publication, the Ministry of Digital Transformation is now returning applications for concluding agreements on subsidies. As RBC’s source noted, this is due to the fact that budgetary funds and limits of budgetary obligations were not brought to the department. This information was also confirmed by Sberbank, which signed loan agreements worth 55.8 billion rubles last year. As the representative of the bank noted, the organization will again begin issuing loans at a reduced rate after “allocating the limit of subsidies.”

Electronics manufacturers were able to take preferential loans in March 2022, at the end of January the government decided to extend this measure to 2023 and beyond. At the same time, the government expanded the concessional lending program: the list of electronics manufacturers of which can apply for concessional financing now includes manufacturers of computers, telecommunications and office equipment, including printers, scanners, etc.

To receive a loan at a preferential rate, its amount must be at least 3 billion rubles, but not more than 100 billion. The period of preferential lending has been increased from one year to five years. It is clarified that at least one manufactured product must be listed in the register of Russian industrial products from 2021 – this is one of the requirements for applicants.

Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin said that 7.5 billion rubles would be allocated to extend the concessional lending program for electronics manufacturers. from the program “Development of electronic and radio-electronic industry”.

According to Svetlana Legostaeva, head of the Computer Science consortium, this support measure is necessary to fulfill plans for the supply of electronics for 2023. At the same time, a representative of the Russian IT equipment vendor F+ tech noted that in 2022 not all a loan, in particular, due to the fact that not all companies could introduce a Russian processor into mobile devices, “which simply did not exist” at that time. In this regard, not a single Russian manufacturer of mobile devices was included in the register last year. According to him, if soft loans are again available this year only to those who could take them in 2022, “This measure will not stimulate the market, but rather cause the opposite effect and distort the competitive field,” if in 2023 soft loans will be available only to those who were able to receive them last year.