The State Duma held hearings on the problems of small and medium-sized businesses

The government’s dissatisfaction with the quality and low efficiency of small and medium-sized businesses (SMEs) will lead to changes in its state support. If until now the state has been de facto engaged in the gratuitous development of the SME sector, now counter demands are being made on it – primarily in terms of import substitution and innovation activity, expressed in the growth of enterprise productivity and revenue per employee, diversification of the sector structure to meet the needs of the economy and increasing the lifespan of enterprises. The strategy of state support for the sector will be adjusted for these purposes.

On Monday, at parliamentary hearings in the State Duma, First Deputy Prime Minister Andrei Belousov summed up the implementation of the national project for the development of SMEs. Its goal by 2030 is to increase the number of people employed in the sector to 25 million people. These requirements have already been exceeded, although largely at the expense of 6 million self-employed people, of whom only two-thirds are actively working. The number of individual entrepreneurs during this period increased by 500 thousand, as did the number of hired workers. This result was considered satisfactory by officials, taking into account three “extremely difficult years” – the sector suffered due to Covid restrictions, sanctions and subsequent problems in the labor market (it is not always easy for small businesses to compete with large ones for personnel), Andrei Belousov listed on Monday.

An increase in the number of people employed in SMEs was shown in 34 regions out of 85, fluctuations within 1% were recorded in 30 regions, and a decrease of more than 1% was recorded in 38.

At a conference call with the regions on issues of supporting small businesses last week, Andrei Belousov already noted that this dynamics correlates with the results of the rating of the state of the investment climate in the regions. In addition, the official marked a departure from the ideology “the federal center provides support, and the constituent entities support it”: since small businesses are located in the regions, they should provide support first of all.

The quantitative growth of the sector in the country as a whole was facilitated by the efforts of the federal center and the policy of expanding the coverage of business with state support measures (see. “Kommersant” dated June 3, 2021) – in particular, financial assistance provided both by the government and the Bank of Russia. From 2020 to 2022, almost 4.5 trillion rubles for all programs of financial support for small businesses. About 250 thousand entrepreneurs received assistance. In 2020, insurance premium rates were halved – to 15%; over three years, small businesses saved more than 1 trillion rubles. System-wide measures were also implemented aimed at improving the well-being of the sector: a reform of control and supervisory activities was carried out, moratoriums on inspections were introduced, and almost manual work was launched with business complaints against law enforcement officers (on the Zabusiness.rf platform). This helped to reduce administrative pressure on small companies; the increase in quotas for mandatory purchases from them by the state and state-owned companies de facto created a guaranteed demand for SME products.

With all this, the government is not satisfied with the current structure of the sector – earlier the Ministry of Economy noted that the Russian SME sector creates fewer jobs and less added value than the foreign one (see. “Kommersant” dated May 30, 2023).

Even then, the government announced that they were counting on qualitative changes in small companies by 2030.

For this purpose, in the new design, the concept of state participation in the development of the sector can unfold diametrically – and from “a little of everything” the authorities will move on to concentrating resources on state priorities. “Under the conditions of sanctions, small businesses are objectively burdened with additional systemic functions related to import substitution and ensuring technological sovereignty,” Andrei Belousov insisted on Monday. If the previous target model for the development of the sector was reduced to creating an environment for the emergence and development of small companies, now the state is ready to make counter demands to SMEs.

At the same time, since it is impossible to set specific “product” goals for a pool of several million companies, formally the new sector development strategy includes goals to increase labor productivity at enterprises, ensure sustainability and diversify production – in the hope that this will allow the “needed” companies to grow. » suppliers. In the first case, SMEs must increase revenue per employee by 25% by 2030 compared to 2022 – productivity growth will allow small businesses to develop in conditions of personnel shortages. In the second case, the government expects to increase the life expectancy of SMEs to 13 years by 2030. As for diversification, now more than a third of SMEs are engaged in trade; in the future, the role of manufacturing SMEs, small technology companies, and SMEs in the tourism sector participating in import substitution should increase. The renewal of the sector will take place at the expense of young people.

For its part, to fulfill the tasks, the government proposes to create a unified digital system of measures for federal and regional support for small businesses, combining them on the basis of the digital platform SME.RF – in this way, duplication of the same support measures at different levels can be eliminated.

The reach of the platform due to wider use by companies is expected to grow from 560 thousand to 2 million users.

Mr. Belousov did not name fundamentally new support measures for the deputies. It is more about adapting and redistributing existing measures between different groups of entrepreneurs.

Thus, companies just entering the market are encouraged to expand access to financial measures – microloans, grants, umbrella guarantees – whereas now they mainly have access to consulting and information services. To support growing businesses, it is proposed to extend the transitional tax regime that applies to public catering to other industries, which will free up small businesses with revenues of less than 2 billion rubles. from paying VAT and will contribute to its “whitewashing”. It is planned to support production by expanding the network of technology parks (currently there are more than 60 in 39 regions, by 2030 there should be more than 100) and reorienting the preferential lending program “1764” (regulated by government decree No. 1764 of December 30, 2018) to investment lending to priority industries. Now enterprises from such industries receive preferential loans under a more profitable combined program of the Central Bank and the government (“1764”), which in fact may mean plans to curtail this combination.

Work to realize its export potential can lead to qualitative changes in the entire sector by expanding the tools to support the Russian Export Center, as well as the infrastructure of international transport corridors and industrial zones abroad.

Today in the Russian Federation there are only about 65 thousand SME exporters – this is slightly more than 1% of all SMEs. Meanwhile, entering foreign markets, as a rule, means a greater level of business competitiveness and its efficiency.

Let us note that an important announcement of Monday’s event is the actual tightening of working conditions for the self-employed. The government is working to bring the working regimes of the self-employed and individual entrepreneurs closer together – and although there are no details yet, simplifying work for individual entrepreneurs looks less likely than tightening the regime for professional income tax payers. It is known that the changes will affect registration procedures, tax and non-tax payments, control and supervisory requirements and reporting measures. Previously, business has repeatedly pointed out that an imbalance in business conditions leads to a flow of individual entrepreneurs into the self-employed. This may lead to a slowdown in the registration of self-employed people, but the government is unlikely to consider this a problem when the issue of further increasing the number of people employed in SMEs fades into the background. General Director of the SME Corporation Alexander Isaevich notes that if the current national project was aimed at creating and growing employment in the SME sector, now it is important that these created companies begin to grow and increase their share in GDP.

Diana Galieva