PM: Govt to continue developing support measures for economy

MOSCOW, Apr 16 (PRIME) -- The Russian government will continue to develop additional measures to support the economy, Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin said at a government meeting on Thursday.

“The next stage will be development and adoption of measures for individual economic sectors. The president has already ordered to allot funds to support air transportation. I’m also asking the industry ministries to prepare proposals on the construction, civil aviation and light industry. The government will continue work on development of additional support measures,” Mishustin said.

He proposed not to make a strict list of systematically important enterprises and said that the industry ministries should have their own lists.

“We probably should not approve the list of backbone enterprises. This is a difficult situation that can change dynamically one way or another, and companies can enter it or exit. We also spoke with (First Deputy Prime Minister) Andrei Ramovich Belousov that industry ministries will keep these lists and, accordingly, represent them here,” Mishustin said.

He also said the government’s direct payments due to the coronavirus will affect 500,000 companies that employ around 3 million people.

“The companies will be able to use these funds both for solving priority tasks and for possible payment of wages ... Business should receive the first payments as early as May 18, as the president instructed, therefore I ask the Federal Tax Service to work out the application algorithm fully and provide necessary information to business as quickly as possible. In total, this program will cover more than half a million representatives of small and medium-sized businesses with more than 3 million employees,” Mishustin said.

He also said the government had proposed to lift restrictions on the possibilities of the regions to provide loans to each other.

“We have already submitted to the State Duma amendments to the budget code, which will allow the regions to be more flexible in finding resources for developing the local economy and improving people's living standards, in particular, restrictions on the so-called horizontal budget loans will be lifted from the beginning of next year, that is, the possibility of lending from one region to another,” he said.

Mishustin has urged banks to get involved in a program of preferential loans to small and medium-sized businesses as soon as possible.

“We are also preparing to expand the program of interest-free loans for paying salaries to all enterprises of the most affected sectors. 75% of such loans will be secured by VEB.RF’s guarantees. Currently, five banks are participating in the program and another 25 will be included soon,” he said.

Banks have already received requests for over 3.5 billion rubles, but this is not much, as the program is designed for 150 billion rubles, he added.

Mishustin has ordered to monitor the situation with preferential loans to small and medium-sized businesses daily.

The government also sent to the State Duma a draft bill to free medical staff from the personal income tax amid the coronavirus spread, Mishustin said.

(73.7145 rubles – U.S. $1)

End %%ob/jst%%