Deputy Head of the Ministry of Economic Development Ilyushnikova named the factors of SME sector growth

The growth of the small and medium-sized enterprise (SME) sector has occurred due to comprehensive actions within the framework of the six-year national project to support SMEs and individual entrepreneurial initiative, which ends in 2024. Deputy Minister of Economic Development of the Russian Federation Tatyana Ilyushnikova told Izvestia.

"Qualitative growth of the sector was ensured by comprehensive support within the framework of the national project: it is a target-oriented financial instruments, educational support for all categories of entrepreneurs, development of infrastructure for business in the form of industrial parks and technology parks," - said the representative of the department.

As she noted, the broad information campaign also had an impact - the role played by the work of the "My Business" centers across the country and federal resources "My Business", the development of the digital platform SME.RF. According to data for 2023, every tenth entrepreneur came into contact with the SME support infrastructure, she specified.

"One of the important factors in the qualitative growth of the sector is the desire of entrepreneurs themselves to develop and scale: today, a tenth of all entrepreneurs are engaged in expanding their business," Ilyushnikova summarized.

Employment in the SME sector has increased one and a half times since 2019 - since the launch of the national project "Small and medium-sized entrepreneurship and support for individual entrepreneurial initiative". In 2023, the number of people working in this sector reached 31.45 million - this figure includes sole proprietorships and the self-employed.

Read more in the exclusive material of Izvestia:

Small in uniform: the number of employed in SMEs has exceeded 31 million