Midkhat Shagiakhmetov: "Systematic work on the qualitative development of SMEs is underway in Tatarstan"

An expert session "From Support to Development: what tools will help scale small and medium-sized businesses" was held today at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum.

The delegation of Tatarstan is headed by the Head of the Republic of Tatarstan, Rustam Minnikhanov. He takes part in business negotiations, meetings, and the signing ceremony of a number of agreements.The session was attended by Deputy Prime Minister of the Republic of Tatarstan - Minister of Economy of the Republic of Tatarstan Midkhat Shagiakhmetov and the republic's economic bloc.

"Tatarstan is systematically working on the qualitative development of small and medium-sized businesses. It is precisely in the intensive growth and technological development of small and medium-sized enterprises that there is a huge potential, which we are discovering thanks to government support tools," Midkhat Shagiakhmetov commented.

The experts discussed the prospects for the development of the SME sector, which today has 6.7 million entities and provides jobs for every fifth able-bodied citizen of Russia.

During the discussion, it was noted that if the goal was to ensure quantitative growth of SMEs until 2024, then qualitative growth of the sector is now needed until 2030 to meet the goal of the Presidential decree to ensure real income growth per employee of an SME 1.2 times higher than GDP growth.

Alexander Isaevich, CEO and Chairman of the Management Board of JSC SME Corporation, presented the corporation's new strategy, which will focus on scaling projects in priority sectors and regions for the economy.

The participants of the discussion considered the issues of guaranteed sales for SMEs in procurement, stimulating youth entrepreneurship and creating favorable conditions for the qualitative growth of small and medium-sized businesses.

The Chairman of VEB.RF Igor Shuvalov, Pavel Malkov, Governor of the Ryazan Region, as well as representatives of successful entrepreneurial projects: Alexander Videnev (Sorb Engineering LLC), Dmitry Petrov (Yablochkov Charging Stations) and Roman Chichkanov (Managing partner of Vitte Capital) participated in the discussion of the issues.

The broadcast of the event is available to all interested parties on the official channels of the forum.