The number of small and medium-sized enterprises in Russia reached a record 6.59 million

The number of small and medium-sized enterprises reached 6.59 million. This result is a record since the start of the register in 2016 and is largely due to the creation of over 1 million legal entities and individual entrepreneurs in 2024. On January 27, "Izvestia" got acquainted with the relevant data of the register of entities of the federal SME Corporation.

Using this base, the sphere of small and medium-sized businesses should now reach qualitative growth, emphasized Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak, who supervises the national project "Efficient and Competitive Economy".

"The realization of the goals and objectives outlined by the President in 2024 will be facilitated by the transition from quantitative growth to qualitative development of small and medium-sized businesses, as well as the formation of a supply economy and the development of technological sovereignty in priority areas. Today we are fine-tuning the most effective tools for business development, which will become the main mechanisms of new specialized - federal and national - projects for the period until 2030", - Novak's words were quoted in the press service of the SME Corporation.

Thus, at the end of 2024, the average monthly revenue of small and medium-sized enterprises, according to the TSC, amounted to 1.7 trillion rubles - for microenterprises, 0.6 trillion rubles - for small and 0.2 trillion rubles - for medium-sized companies. The average revenue per SME grew by 11.2%, exceeding annual inflation.

"The task before the relevant ministries and agencies is to ensure the outstripping growth of income per employee of small and medium-sized businesses until 2030. For this purpose, SME support will be increased, stimulating the development of small and medium-sized businesses, the realization of their potential, so that enterprises grow and move from one category to higher ones. Together with the solution of other strategic tasks, this will ensure the achievement of the goals set by the presidential decree", - said the press service of the SME Corporation the Minister of Economic Development of the Russian Federation Maxim Reshetnikov.

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To achieve the goal of the decree of the head of state to ensure real growth of income per employee of SME subject in 1.2 times higher than GDP growth on the implementation of a new federal project, the tools of which will be bank loans, soft microloans of state microfinance organizations, guarantees, sureties, preferential leasing, accelerator programs for different categories, services of centers "My Business". The SME Corporation's strategy until 2030 is also aimed at achieving the indicator from the decree, the press service specified.

"This primarily concerns manufacturing industries, IT, hospitality, small technology companies. For the development of SMEs the whole range of effective and demanded by business instruments will be used. First of all, these are umbrella guarantees of the SME Corporation, preferential leasing of industrial equipment, preferential investment lending and a number of others. New instruments will also be added to the existing mechanisms to meet the needs of entrepreneurs and the goals of the state," said Alexander Isaevich, General Director of the SME Corporation.

The number of people employed in the SME sector at the end of the third quarter of 2024 amounted to almost 29.5 million people, or 39% of the total working population of the country. At the same time, in a number of regions SMEs provide more than half of jobs, for example, in St. Petersburg (60.8%), Moscow (60.7%), the Republic of Kalmykia (52.8%), or slightly less than half - in the Novosibirsk and Sverdlovsk regions (49.8 and 45.1%, respectively).

Earlier, December 27, it was reported that in Russia in 2024 opened more than a million small and medium-sized enterprises. It was noted that due to this, the share of sole proprietorships in the sector increased from 64% to 66%.