Joint meeting of the Presidiums of the Boards of OPORA RUSSIA and NP OPORA

Photo: press service of OPORA RUSSIA

On January 29, an extended meeting of the Presidium of the Boards of OPORA RUSSIA and the Association NP OPORA was held with the participation of First Deputy Minister of Industry and Trade of the Russian Federation Vasily Osmakov. The Russian Forest Association was represented at the event by its first vice-president Andrey Goncharov, who also heads the SUPPORT OF RUSSIA Commission on the forestry complex.

The central topic of the meeting was a discussion of the development of industrial SMEs in Russia, including measures of state support for the sector, features of doing business in different industries and entering the markets of friendly countries. In his opening remarks, Alexander Kalinin, president of OPORA RUSSIA, noted that in 2023 the number of SMEs in industry increased by 16.5 thousand, or 4%. At the same time, in the manufacturing sector, the largest number of SMEs is represented in the areas of repair of machinery and equipment, production of building metal structures, products and their parts, etc.

Vasily Osmakov, First Deputy Minister of Industry and Trade of the Russian Federation: “The share of SMEs in the total volume of state support through the Ministry of Industry and Trade is over 20% - both in quantitative and financial terms. Small and medium-sized manufacturing businesses implement more than a third of all projects supported by the Industrial Development Fund..

Rosstat also notes positive dynamics in its statistics: industrial production in the Russian Federation at the end of 2023 increased by 3.5% compared to 2022. It also follows from the statistics that the maximum growth in production in 2023 was shown by industries related to the production of computers (32.8%), as well as finished metal products, except machinery and equipment (27.8%). Production of vehicles, including aircraft, increased by 25.5%.

The meeting participants noted the high-quality dialogue that had developed between the Ministry of Industry and Trade and OPORA RUSSIA, and emphasized the need to return to fulfilling the instructions of the President of Russia and the Government of the Russian Federation, creating in a new iteration an analogue of a departmental program with the participation of the business community.