Organizers of exhibitions and conferences the need for new measures of support of Russian Union of Industrialists and entrepreneurs (RSPP) to the government. In addition to subsidies and benefits, the Union requests to reallocate exhibition budget of the Russian export centre (REC), amounting to about 2.8 billion rubles, at the Russian event is foreign.RSPP is preparing an appeal to the government on new measures to support organizers of conferences and exhibitions. A draft letter from the head of RSPP Alexander Shokhin Andrei Belousov, acting Prime Minister, is at the disposal of “Kommersant”. The Union did not respond to a request.The exhibition business has already appealed to Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin in March. The pandemic coronavirus more than 300 activities were under threat of cancellation or postponement in 2020. The largest industry Association estimated the damage at 50 billion rubles, and the predicted reduction of more than 140 thousand jobs, reported by TASS. After this treatment, the government has included the exhibition business in the list of the most affected by the coronavirus industries.Although the government had accepted the main proposals of the industry, “taking into account the changed situation” needs more support, said in a letter to the Union. The Union requests to increase the number of companies that can qualify for state support, with the deletion of the selection criteria, OKVED code “organization of conferences and exhibitions”: not all players in this market it is basic. Instead, the RSPP proposes to create a register of the exhibition companies that meet at least one of three criteria: in addition, RSPP is asking new subsidies. They need participants of Russian exhibitions with labels of the global Association of the exhibition industry, Russian Union of exhibitions and fairs and is scheduled for the second half of the year and 2021. After receiving the money in advance, the exhibitors will be able to cover up to 100% of the cost of participation in exhibitions. For this RSPP proposes to refocus the exhibition a grant of the Russian export centre (REC), which is issued to conduct activities abroad in support of Russian exhibitions. Managing Director of the REC on the organization of Congress and exhibition activities of the Academy Tatyana told “Kommersant” that the grant from the center for events in 2020 amounted to 2.8 billion rubles., now because of the cancellations and transfers of these funds were redistributed to other measures to support exporters, because foreign activities were also cancelled and postponed. “We’d rather see a way out of the situation to support online events with foreign participants”,— says Tatiana Academy of Sciences.The idea is to redirect the budgets of the RECs with foreign events in the Russian — “strategic mistake,” insists the CEO of the company “Expo��ontent” Alexander Modestova. “Exhibitors should have the right to choose the subsidies to participate in any exhibition, foreign or Russian, they no longer need. The Russian exhibition, they will likely be able to pull after out of the crisis, but foreign with the growth of the dollar and the Euro is unlikely. It is precisely during such crises on the world markets are opening up Windows of opportunity to enter the market of a particular country,” explains MS Modestova.The General Director of “Zero plus media” Alexander Sablukov said that organized by the festival “the Multiverse”, was postponed due to the pandemic, relies on the exclusion of the relevant code NACE criteria of state support. “Now he is not the company’s main, although the “Multiverse” is the largest industrial event in its segment with a hundred exhibiting companies and more than 100 thousand visitors,” he says. CEO of the forum “Russian film industry” Catherine Bogacheva said that for her this code NACE also was not a major, but under the new criteria she will probably be able to qualify for support in terms of “proof of experience in the industry”, as it organizes film markets for seven years.”We, the organizers, would be willing to accept delay, if not cancel the event. Income from which in the future it would be possible to calculate taxes by deferring, we just will not,” he says. In his opinion, a major exhibition companies need access to subsidies to pay for labor (now at such compensation could only be claimed by small and medium business). To compensate for lost revenue due to the cancellation of events in the form of grants or concessional loans for 5-6 years at an interest rate not more than 1-2% per annum, with the first payment no earlier than the second year of credit use, suggests Arthur Antonyan.Valeriy Lebedev
