The government will allocate 45 billion rubles to support farmers

The government will allocate an additional 45 billion rubles. to support the preferential lending program for agricultural producers, which will subsidize more than 40,000 loans. About it reports press service of the Cabinet of Ministers.

According to the order signed by Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin, funds from the reserve fund will be used to subsidize loans provided to agricultural enterprises for the production and processing of agricultural products.

The need for additional financing in the government is associated with an increase in the key rate of the Central Bank in the second half of the year. On September 15, the Central Bank raised the key rate by 1 percentage point to 13%. This is the third consecutive rate increase in a month and a half: first, the Central Bank raised the rate at a meeting on July 21 by 1 percentage point to 8.5%, and then unscheduledly increased the rate on August 15 immediately to 12%.

A preferential loan program for farmers has been in effect since 2017. Within its framework, agricultural producers can take out a short-term or investment loan at a rate of up to 5% for the development of crop and livestock production, as well as for the construction, reconstruction or modernization of enterprises for processing agricultural raw materials. A preferential short-term loan is issued for a period of up to 1 year, an investment loan – from 2 to 15 years.

In July 2023, President of the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs Alexander Shokhin appealed to the Minister of Agriculture Dmitry Patrushev with a request not to increase rates on preferential short-term and investment loans. This happened after the Ministry of Agriculture published a draft resolution providing for an increase in the rate to 7% from January 1, 2024.