Innovative regions of Russia unite to combat the economic consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic
Today, a videoconference meeting was held with the heads of the constituent entities of the Russian Federation, members of the Association of Innovative Regions of Russia, chaired by the President of Tatarstan Rustam Minnikhanov. The agenda of the meeting was devoted to the development and implementation of measures of state support for regional economies to overcome the adverse economic consequences of the spread of coronavirus infection.
Let us recall that the Association of Innovative Regions of Russia acts as a platform for interaction between constituent entities of the Russian Federation with the aim of exchanging experience in promoting joint socio-economic projects, as well as for interacting with federal authorities. Since 2010, Tatarstan has been a permanent member of the Association, the President of the Republic of Tatarstan R. Minnikhanov has been appointed as a Chairman of the Council, while the Ministry of Economy of the Republic is responsible for the organizational and technical support of the activities in the Association. The organization includes 17 constituent entities of the Russian Federation, whose heads took part in the meeting. Today, the governors and deputy governors of such regions as the Kaluga, Tomsk, Ulyanovsk Regions, and the Republic of Sakha made reports.
The regional leaders shared their experience in implementing anti-crisis measures on the territory of entities, including support for hotel business and tourism, as well as soft loans to small and medium-sized enterprises in the Kaluga Region; support for private commercial real estate and relevant digital solutions in overcoming the adverse effects of the spread of coronavirus infection in the Tomsk region; the provision of property tax benefits in the Ulyanovsk region; additional tax incentives for business and subsidizing of interest rates on loans and leasing in the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia).
In particular, in Tatarstan, an appropriate action plan has been approved, which agrees on a daily monitoring of prices and availability of basic goods, operational monitoring of the labor market, a set of support programs for SMEs classified as the most affected types of activities. Along with this, the Ministry of Economy of the Republic of Tatarstan has prepared a package of measures to support enterprises that are not on the federal list of affected industries, which include a preferential microloan at 1%, subsidized interest rates on loans, provision of guarantees to attract borrowed funds and subsidized expenses of small businesses in the field of catering for pay for food delivery services.
Also, Minister of Economy Midkhat Shagiakhmetov emphasized the need for timely adoption of legislative initiatives aimed at supporting territories of priority social and economic development. Currently, there are 5 such territories in Tatarstan where 75 residents conduct their activities, which have made almost 13 billion rubles of investments and created about 5,700 new jobs. Midkhat Shagiakhmetov noted the need to maintain preferences on insurance premiums operating in the territories and create new support mechanisms.
The meeting participants worked out a number of general proposals for the most popular federal support measures. Among them, they noted the urgent need to extend the single tax on imputed income, changing the criteria for classifying legal entities as small and medium-sized businesses, delaying the entry into force of labeling of pharmaceutical products, ensuring the payment of a minimum wage in the most affected sectors and providing support measures for the automobile industry.
Following the meeting, it was decided to compile a list of the most relevant and demanded federal support measures in the regions and to submit them to the Government of the Russian Federation for consideration.