Experts spoke about the growth of the number of SMEs in the Russian Federation to 6.7 million.

According to the results of the first quarter of 2025, the number of small and medium-sized enterprises in Russia exceeded 6.7 million. This is a record figure since the start of the special register of SMEs in 2016. This was reported to Izvestia on April 28 at the SME Corporation.

"The sector of small and medium-sized enterprises in Russia continues to develop and grow consistently. In the first quarter of 2025, the increase amounted to more than 118 thousand companies and sole proprietors, breaking the mark of 6.7 million SMEs," Maxim Reshetnikov, Minister of Economic Development of Russia, was quoted as saying in the press service.

According to him, today small and medium-sized businesses are actively involved in the implementation of resource- and knowledge-intensive projects, including the development and creation of unmanned aerial vehicles, the implementation of space programs, and the production of products as part of import substitution.

Currently, approximately two thirds of SMEs operate in the form of individual entrepreneurship.

"As of April 2025, more than 4.42 million sole proprietors are registered in Russia, and over 2.28 million more are legal entities. The sector is not only showing quantitative growth, but is also developing qualitatively. The number of people employed in the SME sector in 2024 exceeded 29 million, which is 29.2% more than in 2019," said Tatyana Ilyushnikova, Deputy Minister of Economic Development of Russia.

According to the results of the first quarter of 2025, the leading regions in terms of the number of SMEs were the Chechen Republic (+7%), Dagestan (6.7%) and Ingushetia (6.2%), as well as the Kherson and Zaporizhia regions (5.3% and 5%, respectively).

Alexander Isaevich, CEO of the SME Corporation, emphasizes that with a high key interest rate, access to preferential loan financing becomes vital for the development of small and medium-sized businesses. In addition to traditional SME sectors such as trade, logistics and the restaurant business, the first quarter also saw an increase in the number of entrepreneurs in areas such as software development, where the increase was 6%.

"The most popular small business soft loan program will remain in place"

Deputy Minister of Economy Tatyana Ilyushnikova on the results of the national project to support SMEs, prospects for the next six years and changes for the self-employed

Earlier, on January 30, the Russian Ministry of Economic Development told Izvestia that the agency was restarting a program of preferential investment loans to small and medium-sized businesses in priority sectors of the economy. The program will be implemented jointly with the Bank of Russia and will combine subsidies from the federal budget, as well as preferential funding from the Bank of Russia.

In addition, as part of the program, the Ministry of Economic Development of Russia will continue to subsidize loans issued in 2019-2024 to SMEs, as well as self-employed citizens, under the 1764 program.