OREANDA-NEWS. November 22, 2011. Russian-German Conference “SME Support Programs: Performance and Prospects. Role of Institutions for Development” was held in St. Petersburg.  The event was organized by State Corporation “Bank for Development and Foreign Economic Affairs (Vnesheconombank)”, OJSC “Russian Bank for Small and Medium Enterprises Support” (SME Bank) and KfW, reported the press-centre of SME Bank.

The conference was held under assistance of the Federal Ministry of Economics and Technology (Germany) and the Secretariat of the RF President Plenipotentiary in the North-West Federal District.

The conference focused on the Russian-German business relations and information on joint SME support programs of Vnesheconombank and KfW.

The participants discussed practical issues of SME lending by KfW and SME Bank. The conference was addressed by Eva Witt, KfW Europe Division Chief of the Private and Financial Sector Development; Dmitry Golovanov, Member of the Board - First Deputy Chairman of SME Bank; and Victoria Chentsova, Head of Institutions and Banking Operations, Eurasian Development Bank. Mr.Golovanov inter alia said: “SME Bank has proceeded with a new phase of lending support to those SMEs which introduce new technologies and implement modernization, innovative, energy efficient and resource saving projects. The aforesaid enterprises will become flagships of the national economy. Development institutions will always have enough resources for their support”.

The conference was attended by representatives of SME infrastructure support entities and heads of SMEs of St.Petersburg, the Leningrad region and other regions of NWFD.