The number of employed in the SME sector exceeded 31 million
In Russia, the number of people employed in small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) has grown one and a half times since 2019, when the national project to support them was launched. In 2023, the number of people working in this sector reached 31.45 million - this includes sole proprietorships and the self-employed, according to the Ministry of Economic Development's report "On the state of small and medium-sized entrepreneurship in Russia and measures for its development in 2019-2023" (available from Izvestia). (Izvestiya has it).
The national project will end in 2024. When the authorities launched it, they set three goals: to increase the number of people employed in the sector to 25 million, to increase the share of SMEs in the country's GDP to 32.5%, and to raise the share of exports of business entities in the total volume of non-resource exports to 10%.
The first task has been accomplished, but the main growth has come at the expense of the self-employed. By 2023 their number increased to 9 million, the report says. At the same time, the contribution of small and medium-sized businesses to GDP at the end of 2022 (the most recent estimate in the document) amounted to 21%. At the same time, the Ministry of Economic Affairs report does not provide information on the share of SMEs in foreign trade. According to the most recent data, from 2019 to 2021, non-resource exports grew by a third, to $50 billion.
SME development is important for Russia because it helps to reduce unemployment, diversify the economy and ensure its sustainability due to its ability to adapt to changes, says Yaroslav Kabakov of Finam Investment Company. This is necessary in the context of Western restrictions, when large companies are more difficult to reconfigure the business, and small companies adapt more quickly.
Read more in the exclusive material of Izvestia:
Small in shape: the number of employed in SMEs has exceeded 31 million
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