Влияние государственных мер поддержки на развитие МСП в России

In the recent years, SMEs, or small and medium-sized enterprises, have been developing around the world and becoming an important part of the economy. Nowadays, in a highly competitive and fast-changing local and global markets SMEs have a significant impact on the economy due to their ability to create new innovative products and processes. Thus, SMEs are often considered the driver of technological progress and economic growth (Bruque and Moyano 2007; Zeng, Xie, and Tam 2010).
In comparison with SMEs from developed countries such as the USA, Germany, Great Britain, etc., SME sector in Russia is still developing. In 2019, The Federal State Statistics Service for the first time revealed the estimation of the share of small and medium-sized businesses in the Russian economy. In 2017 – the debut year of calculating this indicator – it amounted to 21,9% of GDP1, but in 2018 the share of SMEs fell to 20,2% of GDP2. Despite the fact that one fifth is a rather significant share of the economy, nevertheless Russia is far behind developed countries in this indicator, where the share of small and medium-sized businesses in GDP reaches 50-60%, for example, in the UK it is 51%, in Germany – 53 %, in the Netherlands – 63%3.
Given all of the above, various programs to support small and medium-sized businesses are gradually being created in Russia, such as the national project “Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises and the Support of Individual Entrepreneurship Initiatives”, as well as individual projects aimed at developing innovative entrepreneurship, such as the National technology initiative4.
Nevertheless, most of these programs and projects do not work effectively enough yet. For instance, in the report published in the beginning of 2020 the Accounts Chamber of Russian Federation criticized the government’s implementation of the national project “Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises and the Support of Individual Entrepreneurship Initiatives”5. It has noted that the measures proposed for implementation did not significantly affect the growth in the
1 Фейнберг, А. 2019. Росстат впервые раскрыл долю малого и среднего бизнеса в экономике. РБК, февраль 2019. https://www.rbc.ru/economics/05/02/2019/5c5948c59a794758389cfdf7 (accessed August 29, 2020).
2 Старостина, Ю. 2020. Росстат зафиксировал снижение доли малого бизнеса в экономике. РБК, январь 2020. https://www.rbc.ru/economics/28/01/2020/5e2eda219a79473c798d3692 (accessed September 17, 2020).
3 Сектор малого и среднего предпринимательства: Россия и Мир. 2018. Институт экономики роста им. Столыпина П.А. https://stolypin.institute/novosti/sektor-malogo-i-srednego-predprinimatelstva-rossiya-i-mir/ (accessed August 18, 2020).
4 Национальная технологическая инициатива. 2021. Принципы. https://nti2035.ru/nti/ (accessed August 6, 2020). 5 Счетная палата Российской Федерации. 2020. Отчет о промежуточных результатах экспертно- аналитического мероприятия «Мониторинг реализации национального проекта «Малое и среднее предпринимательство и поддержка индивидуальной предпринимательской инициативы». http://audit.gov.ru/upload/iblock/200/2005dbf690b7a5b8d37e3f94ff84ad82.pdf (accessed September 2, 2020).
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number of people employed in the SME sector; SMEs also received 131,3 billion rubles from the planned 1 trillion rubles loans to SMEs as of July 1, 2019, which amounted to only 13,13%, etc.
Moreover, a lot of experts emphasize the low level of awareness of small and medium- sized businesses about available support measures, not clear or overly complicated conditions to take part in some support programs, the still high level of bureaucratic red tape6.
On balance, considering the strategic importance of SMEs for the growth and development of the Russian economy, the analysis of various measures to support the development of SMEs is necessary to understand the key issues – do the measures taken correspond to the real needs of entrepreneurs and help them solve their problems, which measures are working most efficiently. The focus in this study is on the government support measures specifically.
Research object of this study is SMEs, or small and medium-sized enterprises.
Research subject of this study is the government measures to support SME development.
Research goal of this study is to estimate the impact of government supportive measures on SME performance in Russia.
The conducted literature review allows to conclude that, in general, various support measures contribute to improving the performance of SMEs. However, the problem is that due to the great diversity and lack of a uniform model of support measures in different countries, many studies are conducted on the basis of available data in each country. Since the SME sector in Russia is still less mature and established compared to developed countries, there are currently not as many statistics on Russian SMEs accumulated. In this regard, in Russian studies of measures to support SMEs, qualitative studies predominate, for example, describing the typology and development of SME policies (Chepurenko 2017). There are few quantitative studies that measure the effect of support, in particular government support on SME performance. Particularly, this topic is insufficiently researched in Russia. Thus, this work might help fill the identified research gap and provide a quantitative model that will be used to assess the efficiency of government support measures on SME performance in Russia.
The research questions in this study are:
RQ1: What are the government supportive measures for SMEs development in Russia?
6 Сологуб, А. 2020. Бери – не хочу. Банкирам не удалось раздать предпринимателям триллион рублей под небывало низкие проценты – не более 8,5% годовых. РБК+ Петербург, февраль 2020. https://spb.plus.rbc.ru/news/5e3bbe567a8aa9adb49b9479 (accessed August 2, 2020).
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RQ2: What government supportive measures have an impact on SMEs performance in Russia?
Research objectives in this study were formulated as follows:
1. Conduct a literature review on the topic and analyze existing academic research on SMEs, their challenges and government support approaches worldwide and in Russia.
2. Formulate hypotheses, collect data from secondary sources. Describe research methods for the analysis of Russian SMEs.
3. Analyze the relationship between government support measures and the performance of SMEs using econometric methods of analysis. Interpret the obtained results of the conducted empirical research.
4. Provide recommendations to Russian SMEs who are seeking government support and formulate conclusions.
The theoretical value of this work is based on the fact that in order to fill the identified research gap, the current study uses quantitative methods of analysis to assess the efficiency of government measures to support the development of SMEs. Thus, this paper proposes a quantitative approach to the analysis of support measures that can complement the existing dominant qualitative research.
In terms of practical value, this study will be useful for SMEs in that they will be able to expand their understanding of the existing government measures to support SMEs in Russia and determine which measures are most efficient and suitable for them to grow and develop their business.