ABOUT A MILLION SMALL AND MEDIUM-SIZED ENTERPRISES WERE CLOSED IN RUSSIA WITHIN A YEAR

Analysts of the FinExpertiza international network conducted a study of the economic activity of Russians over the year. The results are disappointing: more than one million (1,095,423) SMEs were liquidated.

In fact, as it was noted by the staff of the audit and consulting company, the country has lost 20% of enterprises in this area. At the same time, about 848.5 thousand new legal entities were registered during the same period.

The FinExpertiza network experts note that the number of companies in the Russian Federation has decreased by 4.2%. In total, the country has lost 240 thousand companies. However, employment has increased slightly, by 129 thousand employees.

Currently, the SME sector employs about 15.5 million workers.

The experts note that such a decrease in the number of companies cannot be explained solely by the measures taken against the pandemic. A similar decrease in the number of SME companies was recorded in August last year, but then the data indicated a decrease of only 1.4%. Thus, the downward trend continues and, according to the data presented, it has increased threefold.

According to the statistics, the number of newly opened companies has not exceeded the number of the liquidated ones in any of the regions of country. The worst indicators were noted in Ingushetia, Perm Territory and a number of regions (Bryansk, Pskov, Volgograd). The exception was the Leningrad Region and Chukotka. In general, the number of enterprises representing medium-sized businesses has increased by 17.6 thousand companies (about 5.2%). This offset the serious decline in small (3.3%) and micro (4.3%) entrepreneurship to some extent.

The head of FinExpertiza Elena Trubnikova noted that along with the quarantine, the decline in demand had a great deal of pressure on the state of affairs in the area of small business.

The measures taken by the state had a positive effect on compensating businesses for the drop in profitability as a whole.

We should recall that the national anti-crisis program for the next two years, which was presented to the President of the Russian Federation on June 2, assumed that the state would spend about 5 trillion rubles for this purpose. A month later, Vladimir Kolychev from the Ministry of Finance noted that the cost of the anti-crisis package amounted to 4 trillion rubles.

It is assumed that this money should be spent on the businesses recovery and on help to citizens. It is also planned to use these funds to establish stable work of healthcare organizations and balance regional budgets.