OREANDA-NEWS. October 13, 2010. Sergey Krjukov, CEO of RBD was on a business trip to Yessentuki. During the visit to the North Caucasus Federal Okrug he took part in the conference on SME development in the southern regions of Russia that was chaired by Deputy Prime-Minister of the Russian Federation, Presidential Plenipotentiary Envoy in NCFO Alexander Khloponin, reported the press-centre of RBD.

The challenges of SME development in NCFO were discussed at the conference and the priorities of implementation of different governmental instruments of SME support in these regions were determined at the conference.

In his report Sergey Krjukov told about the progress of implementation of the RBD’s SME Lending Support Program in NCFO. According to Mr.Krjukov the limits set for the okrug are RUR 2.77 billion. At present they are only used for 34%. Currently the Program involves 7 banks and 1 infrastructure organization in NCFO. They are basically major federal banks with a wide network of branches in the regions of NCFO. “We must specify the peculiarity of NCFO – it is very difficult to find channels to make resources available for SMEs”, said S. Krjukov. Moreover the average SME performance indicators in NCFO are lower by far that on the whole in Russia.

According to the RBD CEO there are a number of factors that affect the small business including administrative barriers, underdevelopment of the regional SME support infrastructure, and inaccessibility of financial support in the remote and under-populated areas. Having this in mind and for the purpose of building up the size of lending in 2010 the Bank accentuates on development earmarked products oriented for a certain segment of the economy or for certain regions. “These problems must and shall be settled under the condition of close cooperation of all institutes for SME development both at federal and regional levels including the involvement of RBD”. Now the partner-banks are offered a special credit product with a minimal interest rate – 5.5% aimed at SME development in the regions with a lower demand as well as at motivating the banks for financing first-time entrepreneurs. We have included NCFO in the list of such regions”, said S. Krjukov.

The participants of the conference inclusive of CEO of Rosselkhozbank Dmitry Patrushev and the heads of the NCFO regions pointed out the criticality of participation of the regional authorities in creation of favorable business environment for SME. The following shall be done to solve this problem: reduction in taxes, concessionary rental of premises, access to the power circuit, and establishing of the adequate SME support infrastructure.