NFIA Analytics: Russian business is losing liquidity

According to analysts from the National Financial Information Agency (NFIA), more than half (54%) of Russian businessmen were forced to deal with the problems associated with a decrease in sales in March.  At the same time, in the segment of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), 83% of market participants had to cut their costs.

According to a survey of 500 respondents representing SMEs in various regions of the Russian Federation, about 37% of them decided to cut marketing and IT spending. In 23% of cases, entrepreneurs reduced their staff. 16% of organizations and private entrepreneurs reduced the wages of their employees, the same number terminated the lease agreements for office space.

About 15% of businessmen reported the transfer of staff to remote work.

As Kommersant notes, Russian business is currently realizing the true scale of the consequences caused by the events on the territory of Ukraine. The sanctions imposed by the developed world economies are forcing the Russian government to take an increasingly consolidated approach to the use of government support measures for business.

According to Elena Dybova, who spoke during the round table in the Federation Council, the number of initiatives from SMEs related to state support has already exceeded 11 thousand. At the same time, the vice-president of the Chamber of Commerce and Industry calls the situation an emergency, which means that it requires emergency measures and adjustments of the profile national project.

Representatives of small businesses consider the current regulatory arbitrage aimed at supporting self-employed citizens to be unfair.

In practice, this leads to the fact that, due to the tax concessions and ban on checks, many entrepreneurs from microbusiness and small business are changing their status to self-employed. Representatives of the CCI believe that the rules should be the same for all the categories.

Experts report the changed business moods in the environment of big business. This is evidenced by the practice of communication between the authorities and entrepreneurs. Representatives of large business associations, such as Alexei Repik (Business Russia) and Alexander Shokhin (RSPP), note that the sanctions’ pressure on business turned out to be unexpected, despite the “covid” scenario, for which big business was relatively ready.

According to NFIA estimates, only 16% of businessmen reported that they have not yet experienced the negative impact of sanctions on their business activities. At the same time, 7% of them represent medium-sized businesses, and about 22% have been operating for more than a decade.