Analysis of Key Measures of State Support for Small and Medium-sized Businesses in Modern Russia

The article presents the results of an analysis of the degree of implementation of the key indicators of the National Project “Small and medium-sized Entrepreneurship and support for individual Entrepreneurial initiative” (2018-2024), which allows us to conclude that only one of the three key planned indicators of this project has been completed: As a result of the implementation of the National Project, the first target parameter “increasing the number of people employed in the field of SMEs, including individual entrepreneurs, to 25 million people” was achieved with more than 25% excess. The second target indicator of the National Project “Small and Medium-sized Enterprises” is to achieve almost 33% of the share of small and medium-sized enterprises in the country’s GDP by the end of the period of implementation of the national project. This indicator has not been reached, and moreover, the share of SMEs in the country’s GDP has remained unchanged for many years, fluctuating, it is about 20%, which is 2.5-3 times less than in Germany, Great Britain or China. The third target indicator of the National Project “Small and Medium-sized Enterprises” is an increase in the share of exports of the SME sector in the total volume of non-primary supplies to 10% (from 8.8% in 2019). Achieving this figure is doubtful given the current sanctions pressure. The analysis revealed a decrease in the effectiveness of state support for the SME sector in Russia, therefore, the article substantiates the need to shift the focus of attention – the system of state support measures from quantitative to qualitative parametric characteristics of SMEs. In this regard, measures are proposed aimed at changing the degree of accessibility of SMEs in public procurement, systematically easing administrative pressure on the SME sector, supporting the most conscientious and socially responsible entrepreneurs, fully digitalizing the business environment and developing programmatic measures to improve the investment climate and increase the availability of financial resources for entrepreneurs from all regions of the Russian Federation.