Midhat Shagiakhmetov took part in the session on partner financing
The topic of partnership financing in Russia, the experience gained as a result of the experiment in four regions of the federation and the first assessments were discussed on May 17 at a panel session devoted to this topical issue. The panel session was held within the framework of the International Economic Forum "Russia - the Islamic World: KazanForum". The session was attended by: Deputy Minister of Finance Ivan Chebeskov, Deputy Chairman of the Federation Council Committee on Budget and Financial Markets Mukharbiy Ulbashev, Head of the Supreme Sharia Department at the Central Bank of the UAE Saad Bakkali, Head of the Republic of Tatarstan Rustam Minnikhanov, State Duma deputies Maxim Topilin, Anatoly Aksakov and Airat Farrakhov. The session was also attended by Deputy Prime Minister of the Republic of Tatarstan - Minister of Economy of the Republic of Tatarstan Midkhat Shagiakhmetov.
In particular, the Head of the Republic of Tatarstan, Rustam Minnikhanov, was asked to share his opinion on how the experiment is going in the region, and what else needs to be done to develop partner financing in Russia.
Rustam Minnikhanov thanked the country's leadership, the Central Bank, the Ministry of Finance of Russia and the deputy corps – all those who deal with issues of partner financing.
"We have been working towards this for a long time and systematically," he said. - The experiment consists of four pilot regions, work is going on everywhere, and today we see that there is interest in partner financing. The roadmap has been fully developed and is being implemented, and a single Internet portal dedicated to partner financing has been created."
Rustam Minnikhanov recalled that today there are 23 organizations in the register of the Bank of Russia in the field of partner finance.
"These are mainly organizations from Tatarstan," he said. "But it's not bad, because then it will be possible to organize work on training specialists on the basis of the region."
In addition, 5 more organizations are planned to be included in this register.
"The main thing is that there are positive results," Rustam Minnikhanov said. - Since the beginning of the experiment, about 1300 deals have been concluded. New partner financial products have also appeared - project financing, preferential financing of small businesses, financing of leasing companies, and others."
Work is also underway in the republic to develop halal investment products to attract funds from the public and businesses.
"There are several issues that I have to voice today," said the President of Tatarstan. - One of the key goals of the experiment is to create a mechanism for attracting foreign investment in Russian projects from the countries of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation. To do this, together with Sberbank, we have identified a number of pilot projects in Tatarstan. At the end of April, an investment deal was concluded on partnership principles with a foreign partner – that is, there is already such a precedent. The next stage is the formation of an organized capital market."
"I would like to appeal to my federal colleagues, to business, with a request to consider the possibility of pilot issues of halal financial instruments. There is experience in issuing bonds in our republic, and we are ready to share it."
Rustam Minnikhanov also said: the topic of Islamic finance is one of the key issues during the working trips of Tatarstan delegations to different countries. "Wherever we go, we raise this issue everywhere. Our trip to Iran has yielded results. Miras, a subsidiary of Bank Melli Iran, operates in Tatarstan. This is the first foreign participant in the experiment."
Rustam Minnikhanov clarified at the same time: the regional level alone is not enough to attract foreign partners, serious federal support is needed.
"For the further development of the partner finance market and the involvement of new participants in the experiment, it is necessary to resolve some issues at the federal level," he said. Thus, Rustam Minnikhanov proposed to provide the participants of the experiment with the opportunity to use maternity capital funds; to equalize the conditions for providing partner financing with the conditions of traditional mortgages and loans through the inclusion of partner transactions in the appropriate preferential financing programs for businesses and the public.
"This is especially relevant in light of the fact that religious families, mostly, have many children," Rustam Minnikhanov said. "Why not provide them with these financing tools."
Rustam Minnikhanov also proposes to create a Unified Center of Expertise at the federal level to develop standards for partner financing products;
It is important to start training personnel on partner financing right now, since the insufficient number of specialists makes it difficult to develop the topic of partner finance.
He said that some universities in the region (the Russian Islamic Institute, the Bulgarian Islamic Academy) have organized training and advanced training, but since the beginning of the experiment about 100 people have studied there, more than three hundred have improved their qualifications. This is very little, Rustam Minnikhanov believes, even for our republic it is not very much. "The basis of the work is competent specialists," he said and offered to send recommendations from the Ministry of Science and Higher Education of Russia to universities on the inclusion of disciplines on partner (Islamic) finance in educational programs.
According to the materials of the Press Service of the Head of RT.