OREANDA-NEWS. September 23, 2011. Under the chairmanship of Management Board Member – Vnesheconombank Deputy Chairman Mikhail Kopeikin a regular meeting of the Working Group on Implementing the Agreement on Cooperation between Development Institutions in Securing Continuous Financing of Innovation Projects was held.

The meeting’s participants explored the issue of joining the Agreement between the Agency for Strategic Initiatives and the Russian Technological Development Fund (RTDF).

The Agency for Strategic Initiatives plans to use a mechanism of innovation lift to work out schemes for providing financial support for innovation-oriented projects and parties to the Agreement will be able to use the Agency’s resources for providing administrative support for projects they implement. Director of the Agency’s “New Business” Artem Avetisyan said that the Agency’s main objective will be to raise financial resources to fund medium-sized enterprises’ projects among other things from financial institutions.

In his turn, Managing Director of the Russian Technological Development Fund Alexandr Korznikov told the Working Group’s members about his Fund’s business plans. A main instrument applied by RTDF for supporting innovation enterprises involves interest-free loans intended for doing R&D in the amount ranging from 30 to 300 million rubles. Thus, an opportunity for extra funding of SMEs is emerging in the system of innovation lift along with extending grants by the Fund to Promote the Development of Small Enterprises in the Scientific-Technical Sphere and credits under the program “Financing for Innovations and Modernization” of OJSC SME-Bank

At the Working Group’s meeting a decision was taken to work out bilateral regulations for cooperation between RTDF and financial development institutions – the parties to the Agreement, as well as a decision to prepare a number of pilot projects to be implemented jointly.

The meeting’s participants also discussed the Basalt Composites for the North project earlier approved under the program “Financing for Innovations and Modernization”. The meeting’s participants discussed a scheme for financing a regular investment round with regard to the project that provides for using resources of OJSC SME-Bank and OJSC RUSNANO.

The Working Group approved a draft law prepared by Vnesheconombank on introducing amendments in Federal Law dated July 24 2007 № 209-FZ “On the Development of Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises”. The draft law provides for adjusting criteria for attributing legal entities to SMEs in order to lift limitations on development institutions’ participation in SMEs’ capital as well as for easing such limitations for foreign investors (increasing minimum percentage participation share of such investors in SMEs’ capital from 25% to 49%).

The Working Group was set up to implement the Agreement on Cooperation between Development Institutions in Securing Continuous Financing of Innovation Projects at all stages of innovation cycle. The Agreement was worked out at Vnesheconombank’s initiative and was signed in April of 2011. The Agreement aims to make arrangements for cooperation between the parties in identifying needs of innovation companies and providing them with instruments, services and conditions for implementing innovation projects on the Russian territory and the global market.