Joint meeting of the presidiums of the boards of OPORA RUSSIA and the Association NP OPORA

Photo — Ministry of Industry and Trade of Russia

On March 25, a joint meeting of the presidiums of OPORA RUSSIA and the Association NP OPORA was held with the participation of the Minister of Industry and Trade of the Russian Federation Anton Alikhanov. The Association Russian Forest was represented at the meeting by its first vice-president Andrey Goncharov, who heads the OPORA RUSSIA Commission on the forest complex.

The main attention was paid to issues of interaction between the Ministry of Industry and Trade and the business community. Among the key topics:

• support for domestic producers;
• customs and tariff regulation;
• improving the mechanism of public procurement;
• labeling of products;
• localization of production;
• prospects for international cooperation.

Anton Alikhanov emphasized that national projects create stable demand for products of small and medium businesses, opening up opportunities for scaling up production and entering new markets.

Anton Alikhanov, Minister of Industry and Trade of the Russian Federation: “Based on the experience of previous years, you are well aware that almost all of our system-wide and industry mechanisms are available to enterprises regardless of their size. These are preferential loans from the FRP, subsidies for R&D, reverse engineering, assistance in creating industrial infrastructure and industrial mortgages.”.

In 2024, the share of SMEs among recipients of support from the Ministry of Industry and Trade amounted to about 54%, while they accounted for almost a third of the funding.