the Recovery from the crisis will take at least two years.
a Million small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) will be forced to stop operations until August 2020. This forecast was shared with “Izvestiya” Russian business enterprises — “OPORA Russia”, chamber of Commerce, “Business Russia”. Record the withdrawal from the market is linked to the unprecedented crisis that is currently faced by small entrepreneurs. The worst hit will be the service sector, hospitality and catering, food retail, and the number of people employed in them is also greatly reduced by 23 million people, experts say.
the Russian business has not faced such difficulties as now, said the head of “OPORA Russia” Alexander Kalinin. In recent months, the global economic downturn superimposed on epidemiological crisis — these factors will lead to the fact that many small and medium-sized firms will be forced to cease operations in the near future, he said.
He explained that in August, you receive statistics on the number of SMEs: these data are published annually on the website of the Unified register of small and medium business. As previously wrote “Izvestia”, last year in Russia was closed 700 thousand small and medium-sized firms. This happened on the background of the increase in VAT, the introduction of the cash register equipment and General deterioration of economic conditions.
Alexander Kalinin also noted that comparable statistics today does not exist in past economic crises, for example in 2008, a record number of SMEs was carried out.
“Izvestia” asked the other business enterprises about how many small and medium companies will be forced to leave the market until August. The head of CCI Sergey Katyrin agreed with the forecast of “OPORA Russia”. According to him, the current crisis makes the experience for the position of small business.
— Today is indeed reason to believe that the number of small and medium enterprises during epidemics seriously reduced. Evaluation (“Support Of Russia”. — “News”) is close to what they say, and most experts Commercial industrial chamber, — he told “Izvestia”.
in the meantime, surveys of businesses conducted by the chamber show that the situation leaves much to be desired, categorical Sergei Katyrin. For example, most firms banks refused without explanation in soft loans to pay salaries, he said.
This is confirmed by including monitoring data of the business Ombudsman: according to him, in the first week of the program banks rejected 152 of the 158 applications of entrepreneurs, but since then the proportion of failures was reduced to 30%.
However, Sergey Katyrin added that due deterioration of the economic situation dramatically and quickly increase the number of self-employed.
— Their��number through the year will considerably exceed one million, and among them will be many of those who before the crisis, identify themselves to small businesses, he said.
The “Business Russia” also predicted negative trend in the number of small and medium companies.
He explained this by the fact that in some segments completely stopped working 100% of the companies, and their revenue, even if the restrictions will be removed in June, still long to return to pre-crisis indicators.
Today there are 6 million SMEs, including 2.5 million legal entities and 3.5 million individual entrepreneurs, announced managing Director of the rating Agency NKR Dmitry Nuts. Services every third of them to quarantine all no demand, and given the fact that the opening of shops, catering establishments and other services with no limit on the number of visitors is expected only at the last stage of the abolition of the restrictive measures, not all companies will live up to this time, the expert believes.
the Largest decrease will be in the areas of tourism, hotel and restaurant business, exhibition activities, non-food retail, fitness, household services, said Dmitry Nuts. The recovery of SMEs will require about two years.
the decline in the number of subjects of small and average business can exceed 1 million to reach 1.3−1.8 million, estimated economist “BCS Premier” Anton Pokatovich. He agreed that under the main blow will be the service sector — the viral factor this year will have a lot of pressure on consumer demand, many households will go to savings behaviour. The expert forecasts and employment: the decline of the labour market in SMEs, this year may be on the order of 15-25%, he said.
In the business associations also expect a sharp decline in the number of employees of small and medium companies: according to Sergey Katyrin, according to the results, the reduction would amount to several millions.
the Ministry “Izvestia” said that the acute phase of the crisis is not over and support measures has not started working in full force. There is also assumed that there will be additional packages of measures to help business. In such a situation to make predictions on changes in the number of SMEs prematurely, concluded the Agency.
Earlier, the President announced measures to support small and medium businesses in pandemic. Among them — the postponement of taxes (except VAT) and insurance premiums, a moratorium on the bankruptcy at the request of creditors, the ability to get a cheap loan on salary of employees at 0%, a subsidy in the amount of the minimum Wage on workers ‘ compensation, etc.
Ekaterina Vinogradova
