Mikhail Mishustin: “We need systemic solutions to successfully move towards our national goals. Therefore, we plan to pursue efforts in four areas – developing different formats of financial support, creating growth conditions through broader access to consumer markets and decreasing the burden of taxes and reporting requirements, lifting administrative barriers and upgrading support infrastructure in the regions.”
Mikhail Mishustin’s opening remarks:
Good afternoon, colleagues.
Meeting of the Government Commission on the Development of Small and Medium-Sized Businesses
The growth of small and medium-sized businesses is one of the key tasks that should be solved in order to achieve the national goals set by the President of Russia.
Today we will hold a regular meeting of the Government Commission on the Development of Small and Medium-Sized Businesses. It will take place in an expanded format. Representatives of federal and regional authorities, the business community, and entrepreneurs are present here. We will be able to use this format to have an open and constructive conversation on the most pressing topics.
Almost every third person in our country works for a small or medium-sized business. The pace of development of the economy as a whole largely depends on the processes taking place in this sector. After all, many fresh ideas and innovations appear in this very segment: in small and medium-sized businesses.
Following the President’s instructions, the Government has implemented a number of support measures. The toolkit is constantly improved and updated, taking into account, of course, current challenges, for example, factors such as the spread of the coronavirus. We launched the third aid package in November to mitigate the impact of the pandemic.
The FOT 3.0 loan support programme has been extended with some amendments plus new special grants. These mechanisms were available to the representatives of the worst-affected sectors: the owners of hotels, resorts, restaurants, dental clinics, cinemas and others. We should also mention the socially-oriented non-profit organisations.
Judging by the number of applications, businesses actively used these opportunities. In particular, the Federal Tax Service received grant applications from 523,000 companies in November. Over 40,000 applications (18-month loans at a 3 percent interest rate) have been submitted under the FOT 3.0 programme.
There are other solutions. The Government has submitted a package of draft laws to the State Duma, designed to launch an experiment to transition the smallest enterprises to a new special tax regime, the automated simplified taxation system. It aims to help the mass segment of small and medium-sized businesses and will relieve organisations with a gross income of up to 60 million roubles and no more than five employees from calculating taxes and filing reports on their own.
We will continue the successful practice of automated renewal of licences that was launched at the beginning of the pandemic. The new measure was applied to 41,000 licences and over 1 million permits. We plan to extend the state accreditation of educational programmes, environment impact audits, air worthiness certificates, construction permits and many other documents to next year. We suggest extending licences in nine areas, while two will be amended.
We hope that this will cover over 10,000 permission documents. Practice shows that this approach cuts business expenses and reduces the time spent on contacts with the authorities: federal executive agencies and other government officials. Expenses will decrease while the quality of work and services will be maintained or even improved.
Naturally, these separate steps are important but in order to successfully move towards the national goals, system-wide solutions are needed. Therefore, there are plans to act in four main directions.
First of all, this involves the development of various formats of financial support, adjustments and improving the targeting of these measures. Among the tasks in hand are expanding the accessibility of funding and covering the recipients of the financial aid, including through the introduction of the mechanism of the MSP Corporation’s umbrella guarantee for the support of small and medium-sized businesses.
Plans also involve the streamlining of the subsidised loans in order to increase the efficiency of each rouble allocated to support small and medium-sized businesses.
Another direction is the creation of conditions for growth, in particular through wider access to the target market and lowering the burden of taxes and reporting. I have already mentioned the experiment to introduce a special tax regime. Starting this year, the limit on the number of employees and turnover that allows for a simplified taxation system has grown by a third; the sphere of application of the patent system has also been expanded.
From next year, public catering enterprises will be relieved from VAT provided that their revenue for the previous year is no more than 2 billion roubles. We have spoken a lot about this and held many meetings with the representatives of such businesses. In addition, the limit on the number of employees is to be increased, which will provide for lower social contributions at the rate of 15 percent of payments that exceed the minimum monthly wage level.
Work to simplify access for small and medium-sized businesses to procurement contracts is underway. Quotas will be increased from next year, and administrative liability will apply for the failure to make payments to small and medium sized business. A number of other steps are envisaged.
Another important area of work is the elimination of administrative barriers. The For Business platform will be an important tool here. It was created to achieve external monitoring of government agencies. Over 3,000 users have registered there, submitting some 2,500 requests. We need to review each of them.
In addition, the moratorium on scheduled inspections of small businesses will be extended to next year.
We pay a great deal of attention to the development of assistance infrastructure in the regions. The operators of the existing measures are the local My Business centres. They unite infrastructure facilities and development institutes in a one stop shop format. Entrepreneurs can receive comprehensive assistance there, from devising a business plan to selecting office premises, financial aid, production certification, moving into external markets and an entire range of other support measures. These measures are divided into groups depending on the development stage of a business, so they will be useful to both beginners and those who are ready to develop and scale up.
Colleagues,
Today we will discuss in detail the developments with small and medium-sized businesses and see what additional steps are needed, what measures can be outlined and what difficulties such businesses are currently facing.
