The briefing focuses on progress in implementing business support measures amid the spread of the coronavirus.
Excerpts from the transcript:
Briefing by Maxim Reshetnikov
Maxim Reshetnikov: On the current situation in implementing the anti-crisis measures. I would like to remind you that in general the Government has implemented the first and the second sets of business support measures. The first package was intended to provide a variety of payment deferrals, tax grace periods, postponement of loan repayments, leasing deferrals as well as to adjust the legislation to work under the current conditions.
The goal of the second package was to provide financial support and to expand the adopted lending programmes. One of the basic and most necessary of them as of now was the programme for crediting businesses at a zero percent interest rate for wage payments. I would like to remind you that the amount of the loan is based on the average number of workers at an enterprise and the minimum monthly wage, proceeding from the need for wage payments during six months. To date, almost 6,000 enterprises have taken advantage of such loans and 22,000 requests for them are being considered by the banks. The programme involves 31 banks and their number is constantly growing. There are already more than 220,000 jobs being supported.
All in all, the programme was intended for 1.5 million jobs. In addition to small and microbusinesses it now applies, as per the President’s instructions, to medium-sized and major enterprises in the affected sectors. This way the programme’s scope has practically doubled. We expect more and more enterprises to use this programme. And it is very important for small and microenterprises to have access to it so that the funding does not only go to medium-sized and larger enterprises. For this reason we have set a minimum quota for small and microenterprises equal to 40 percent of the allocated funds.
The programme is gaining momentum and we can see more and more requests with each new day. Now the daily increment makes up 1,500–2,000 requests. The banks have fine-tuned their work.
We have resolved a number of issues in the programme. Specifically, the Federal Tax Service has adopted blockchain technology (distributed ledger), which makes it possible to receive a loan not only in your bank, through which you are paid wages, but also through any other bank. Meanwhile, this technology helps control loan receipt by the enterprise in one bank only, so that every enterprise could have such an opportunity.
And the second question from businesses. The programme is related to business activities, and there are changes for small and microbusinesses here. Now if at least one type of hard-hit activity is listed in the enterprise’s charter, not only the main but any type, then the company is eligible. And, of course, for medium-sized and large businesses, loans are provided according to the main activity.
It is also important that a second initiative has been added to this programme, the key initiative in the second programme - direct payments to businesses: 80 billion roubles of support grants are envisaged for small and medium-sized businesses in the hard-hit industries. Grants will be provided in May and June also based on the principle of one minimum wage for a job at the enterprise. Applications will be received as of 1 May. The Federal Tax Service is actively preparing to receive and to process them to make this as simple and also as clear as possible. The main requirement for companies is to preserve at least 90 percent of the jobs.
I would like to speak a bit about another important programme, the moratorium on loans programme, “three thirds.” This programme is being implemented slower than issuing zero loans for wages, as I have just mentioned. Let me remind you that the programme envisages a suspension of all the payments for six months including payment of interest. The interest is divided into three parts: one third is covered by the federal budget, one third by the banks and one third by the borrower. The borrower can also pay this interest with the first payment on the loan six months later. To date, three banks are participating with one billion roubles worth of agreements; we have applications from 30 more banks. We must continue to increase this programme, because we think the banks do not always promote it actively enough. But we will work on this. In general, we have agreed that we will provide all the information about the banks’ involvement in the state programmes. As of today, we have four programmes in cooperation with the banks: a subsidised loan programne – a loan at zero rate for wages; the “three thirds” programme; a programme on concessional lending to small and medium-sized businesses, which has been modified; and a lending programme for backbone companies, on which I will speak later. So small business support programmes are actively developing, and we are cooperating with small and medium-sized businesses. I am absolutely sure that additional measures will be proposed in the third package.
Work with backbone companies is another innovation in the second package. As of today, we have specified the criteria and formed the new list of backbone companies which includes 1,100 of them. A lending programme has been launched for the such companies with a subsidised rate. The state will subsidise the key rate: 5.5 percent as of today. At companies’ requests, the maximum loan amount was raised to three billion roubles. The task is to provide additional working capital in order to support production at these enterprises. The first agreement on loans for such enterprises was signed with Sberbank yesterday. We are about to make agreements with other large banks, such as VTB, Otkrytiye and several others. So I hope that the issue of loans will begin today or tomorrow. In fact, we have managed to begin implementing the programme during the week before the resolution was signed and the first disbursements started.
I will also speak about leases. The first package of measures envisaged a number of amendments on the leasing of property, both state and private. Work is underway, but at present it can hardly be called satisfactory. The Federal Agency for State Property Management has only received 400 requests from small and medium-sized businesses and signed 200 additional agreements to defer payments. This is not much; moreover, public organisations and I receive information from businesses that the agencies don’t make concessions on all the federal property. Often this property belongs to various federal unitary enterprises. We have asked the federal agency to have a stricter control of these cases when concessions are not made for small businesses. I am calling upon small businesses to report such cases more actively, so that we can work on them.
The regions are joining these projects more actively: 30 of them have already adopted corresponding legislative acts on deferrals on lease payments, and another 14 regions are working on them. We are constantly staying in touch with the regions.
I would also like to speak about reducing administrative barriers. To date, over 50,000 inspections in various spheres have been suspended. In total, 100,000 scheduled and 400,000 surprise inspections of SMEs, including tax and customs, will be cancelled this year.
Fifteen types of licenses and permits expiring in 2020 are being automatically extended. The total number of extended licenses and permits will be over 36,000, which will save businesses’ time and also money.
All told, the implementation of the package of measures is ahead of schedule, but let me stress once again: implementing them and making them reach the stage when businesses can use them easily and clearly are the most important issues.
There are still a lot of matters to address: at the regional level, issues on several banks and the final adjustment of all systems. However, we are keeping in touch with the business communities. We have agreed that Opora Russia, the Russian Popular Front, the Chamber of Commerce and Industry, the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs and Business Russia will control this. We are staying in touch with all the organisations and meeting with businesses. We are trying to consider all the proposals when developing a new package of measures.
Question: Mr Reshetnikov, where can we find information or send a complaint to if the measures don’t work?
Maxim Reshetnikov: We have published all the current support measures on a website titled “Virus-Free Economy”. It has all the existing types of support. We have also launched chat bots in the most popular messengers. But if you have any questions, write via the ministry’s website and public organisations, or directly to me with a message on Instagram. We are trying to monitor all systematic issues in these requests and trying to resolve them quickly.