OREANDA-NEWS. July 16, 2010. In June, 2009 the SME Lending Support Program was launched. Over the last year RBD has carried out a lot to attain the declared objective – providing small business with available resources in all regions of the Russian Federation. Presently SME support is provided in 78 Russia’s regions, reported the press-centre of RBD.

SME support via a network of the partner banks remains one of the priority areas of RBD’s operations. Over the last year 91 banks joined the Program. The total amount of agreements signed with the partner banks reached RUR 30 billion. Within the framework of the Program the partner banks extended 3278 loans to small enterprises.

A year ago RBD presented a new trend – SME support via infrastructure organizations. As a result 66 leasing and factoring companies, microfinance organizations and regional SME support funds became RBD’s partners.  The amount of agreements signed with the SME infrastructure support entities reached RUR 10 billion. Within the framework of the program the infrastructure entities concluded 1390 agreements with SMEs.

Thus RBD has provided tangible support to small business during the recession year. SMEs that received funding pursuant to the Program have produced goods and rendered services for a total amount of RUR 125.1 billion. These companies have paid budget taxes for a total amount of RUR 8.5 billion.  74 thousand people were employed at these enterprises.

The efficiency of the Program may be assessed, firstly, by the growth of SMEs that enjoyed support, the increase of the amount of funding and reduction of interest rate for the ultimate borrowers. The Bank monitors these indicators on a regular basis. “The Russian Bank for Development, positively, seeks to build up the size of SME support. But it is more important that small business in every region could apply to several banks and provided it meets the requirements of the Program the SME could obtain available resources for development and even for start-up”, - pointed out Olesia Teploukhova, Director of SME Financing Department.

Providing financial support to small business the Bank systematically reduces lending rates and enlarges the maturities. The average weighted lending rate for SMEs via the partner banks currently reaches 15.39% p.a. The long-term lending to manufacturing companies implementing innovative and modernization projects is rather topical, it will promote growth of lending in the real economy sector. The share of long-term loans to SMEs in the loan portfolio of the partner banks is 66%; the share of uncommercial sector is 51.4%.

RBD doesn’t intend to concentrate only on the present SME support strategies via the partner banks and the infrastructure organizations, although they will be improved as well. Support to SMEs in the area of modernization and innovations is a new RBD’s priority.

“Support to innovative small business includes both development and introduction of new financial products and formation of management procedures enabling to provide consistent financial support to innovative projects at all stages of the reinvestment cycle. Currently the Bank is structuring a portfolio of pilot projects to be implemented this year”, - said Sergey Krjukov, Chairman of the Board of RBD.