The State Duma extends state support for enterprises selling children’s and educational literature

The State Duma on Tuesday adopted in the first reading a bill from the LDPR faction on the introduction of permanent measures to support small and medium-sized businesses selling children’s, youth, educational and educational book products. Not only the communists, who remembered the USSR as “the most reading country in the world,” but also, which rarely happens with purely opposition initiatives, “United Russia” and the relevant committee spoke in favor of approving the document. True, its representatives proposed for now limiting ourselves to extending existing support measures for three years and only then analyzing their effectiveness.

The bill was submitted to the Duma by LDPR deputies in August 2023 and included in the list of priority initiatives of the faction. The authors proposed making unlimited support for small businesses selling books for children and teenagers, educational, educational and reference literature. Now the law “On the Development of Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises” states that the rules on support for the book business by government authorities are valid until December 31, 2024. The government and the Duma Committee on Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) supported the concept of the document, which does not often happen with opposition bills.

“It is necessary to increase the level of education of both young people and the professional community that uses these categories of books, especially because now is the time of the Internet and our youth, unfortunately, read few books,” explained the importance of the bill, its co-author Vladimir Sipyagin.

He noted that thanks to the amendments, enterprises will be able to take advantage of such government support measures as receiving grants, tax breaks, assistance in information support and property issues. Mr. Sipyagin also said that in order to obtain the status of a social entrepreneur, children’s and educational literature must account for 55% of all products sold, and now only 35 SMEs out of 4.5 thousand engaged in this type of activity meet this criterion.

Speaking with a co-report from the relevant committee, Alfiya Kogogina (United Russia) recalled that the current norm on supporting SMEs in the field of selling children’s books expires only at the end of 2024, and “it is premature to talk about the effectiveness of providing support measures in this area.” In her opinion, it would be better to determine a specific period for extending support measures, for example until 2027, and analyze their effectiveness in the long term.

Oleg Smolin (Communist Party of the Russian Federation) did not agree with the position of the committee: “We have fewer and fewer book readers, especially among young people. Does the committee believe their numbers will increase dramatically by 2027?” Ms. Kogogina again spoke about the lack of analysis of the effectiveness of support measures, which could be carried out by 2027 and then we could think about whether to make them indefinite.

“What guided the committee when deciding on the 2027 deadline? Will we not have sanctions? — Nina Ostanina (Communist Party of the Russian Federation) was perplexed.

Alfiya Kogogina responded that, based on statistics, entrepreneurs, in principle, are not very interested in selling children’s and educational literature. “We need to think together about how to make books of higher quality and more accessible, and for entrepreneurs to promote them. This is an important task, but it goes beyond the scope of this bill,” concluded Ms. Kogogina.

Vice-speaker Irina Yarovaya (ER) proposed focusing on the “substantive content” of the work carried out by the book business. And Andrei Alshevskikh (United Russia) drew attention to the explanatory note to the bill, which states that it “is proposed as an additional measure to support SMEs in connection with the planned deterioration of the economic situation in the Russian Federation.” “We reviewed the budget, and, according to the government, there are no prerequisites for deterioration in the country,” the United Russia member sternly stated. Vladimir Sipyagin explained that we are talking about “the deterioration of the economic situation in terms of income of the population.” “When we look at the shelves in a bookstore, we see that the prices are, to put it mildly, amazing. And our common task is to support this area so that prices are much lower,” the Liberal Democrat taxied to a safe topic.

Oleg Smolin again took the floor and recalled that in the late 80s the USSR was the most reading country in the world, and reading was qualitatively different: philosophical and historical literature was popular. And now Russia has slipped to levels lower than in the 90s, when reading “for a number of reasons” became much less, and even the Internet is harmful. “What are our children reading on the Internet? News, various kinds of messages on social networks, “fan fiction,” at best, abbreviated retellings of works,” the deputy complained. But the LDPR bill, in his opinion, will help improve the situation.

Alfia Kogogina assured that United Russia will also support the amendments, since it “encourages people involved in social entrepreneurship.” As a result, 399 deputies voted for the bill, there were no votes against or abstentions.

Ksenia Veretennikova