The Legislative Duma of Tomsk Oblast
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SMALL BUSINESS NEEDS SUPPORT
Tomsk Special Economic Zone held parliamentary hearings on the efficiency of government support measures for small and medium business. The hearings were attended by business and government representatives including officials from federal ministries and agencies and Director of the Department of Small and Medium Business and Competition of the Ministry of Economic Development Natalia Larionova. The hearings were set up by the Legislative Duma of Tomsk Oblast.
“Small business in the regions plays two vital roles – it provides jobs and income security to local people. It is also a key component in the economy of Tomsk Oblast. At the beginning of the year the region had 62,000 registered economic entities, including 44,000 medium, small and micro-enterprises and sole proprietors,” said Speaker of the Legislative Duma of Tomsk Oblast Oksana Kozlovskaya in her opening speech.
For several years Tomsk Oblast has been among the leaders in Siberia for the degree of development of small business. Government does their best to support business, still it does not fully keep businessmen out of trouble. A serious issue is often lack of startup capital for the development of the business. Here, the region provides soft loans to businesses under a number of government-run programs. Also, the Guarantee Fund of Tomsk Oblast provides support to about 50 firms annually.
“As I see it, when we shape the region’s budget for 2016, we should first of all target the businesses that have demonstrated successful start. The existing legal framework allows doing that,” Oksana Kozlovskaya said.
Natalia Larionova also pointed out that under the current ‘difficult budget conditions’ greater attention should be given to domestic industrial enterprises integrating into the business processes of large government-owned corporations.
“We do not want to limit support to targeted subsidies. We want to shape a new ideology, new businesses which will be capable of evolving on their own after they receive an initial boost. It is a heavy boulder but it has started to move,” she said.
Among other topics raised by Tomsk businessmen were urban planning, use of land, excessive administrative burden and incessant government audits.
“President says any attempts to make the life a nightmare for business are inacceptable. In practice government audits come one after another and often reasons are not clear,” a businessman complained. Oksana Kozlovskaya assured that the regional government will follow up on the problem and will involve all regulatory agencies from Rospotrebnadzor to the Prosecutor’s Office.
“Businessmen mostly want two things: don’t change the rules every year, give equal treatment to everybody and… do not interfere too often. As someone who closely monitors the situation around the regional business I must note that it is a fair statement,” said Oksana Kozlovskaya to the journalists.
Summarizing the hearings the Speaker pointed out that the business and the government had a constructive dialogue with very specific questions asked and very informative answers given first hand. All issues that were raised in the meeting will be followed through and communicated to the federal agencies, some taking the shape of legislative initiatives by Tomsk Duma deputies.
