OREANDA-NEWS. May 31, 2010. The 10-th All-Russian Conference of Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises’ representatives “The Role of Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises in Modernizing the Russian Economy” was held in Moscow.

In attendance of the Conference were Russian Economic Development Minister Elvira Nabiullina, President of the All-Russian Nongovernment Organization of Small ad Medium-Sized Enterprises – OPORA ROSSII Sergei Bykov, representatives of small and medium-sized enterprises, federal, regional and municipal authorities, associations of entrepreneurs, territorial trade and industrial chambers, regional entrepreneurship promotion institutions and international organizations providing support to SME.

During the first day of the Conference its participants discussed actual objectives and role of small and medium-sized enterprises in modernizing Russia’s economy along the following lines: investments, infrastructure, intellect, integration, innovations. The discussions took place on five debating floors.

The debating floor – Investments - was chaired by Management Board Member – Vnesheconombank Deputy Chairman Mikhail Kopeikin. The Conference participants examined the issues of increased SME access to financial resources, identified top-priority lines of financial support and development of SME to increase SME role and contribution to modernizing Russia’s economy as well as made recommendations to the government authorities, municipal administrations and associations of entrepreneurs on creating favorable conditions for small and medium-sized enterprises to get access to investments.

Speaking at a plenary meeting of the Conference Mikhail Kopeikin said that in the crisis year of 2009 Vnesheconombank’s program had become one of the key instruments to financially encourage the development of small and medium-sized enterprises by the state.

All in all, in 20099 Vnesheconombank committed 40 billion rubles through the Russian Development Bank to support small and medium-sized enterprises, about 15 billion rubles were provided by Vnesheconombank’s subsidiary banks – NTB, Svyaz-Bank and Globex-Bank. “Until the end of 2010 we plan to cover all Russian regions by extending credits to SME in the amount of 100 billion rubles”, said M. Kopeikin.