OREANDA-NEWS. October 29, 2009. State Corporation ‘Bank for Development and Foreign Economic Affairs (Vnesheconombank)’ and Banking Group Kreditanstalt fur Wiederaufbau Bankengruppe (KfW) held a German-Russian Forum “Development of Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises under the Conditions of the Financial Crisis”.

In attendance of the Forum were Management Board Member, Vnesheconombank Deputy Chairman Mikhail Kopeikin; Ronald Ziller, KfW, Director of the Department for Financing Central, Eastern, Southern European, CIS and Northern Caucasus countries; Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the Federal Republic of Germany to the Russian Federation Jurgen Walter Schmidt; Chairman of the Committee on the Development of Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises of the Tatarstan Republic Timur Shagivaleev; President of Nongovernment Organization “Opora Rossii” Sergei Borisov; representatives of Russian and German line ministries; small and medium-sized enterprises.

Speaking before the Forum’s participants, Vnesheconombank Deputy Chairman Mikhail Kopeikin told them about the beginning of implementing the Agreement “The German-Russian Initiative on Financing Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises”. The Initiative provides for KfW to extend long-term credits against Vnesheconombank’s guarantees to Russian lending institutions for them to finance SMEs. The Agreement is worth 2000 million euros. Under this Agreement, 8 Russian banks and the KfW Group entered into individual agreements, moreover, Vnesheconombank issued its first guarantee for a Russian bank in the amount of 32.8 million US dollars.

The Forum’s participants discussed distinguishing features of small and medium-sized enterprises development under the conditions of the financial crisis and prospects for offering financial services to SMEs by Russian banks. The participants exchanged their business experience in promoting and supporting SMEs in the Russian regions and discussed examples of cooperation between Russian and German companies, banks and government authorities.