“60k self-employed in Tatarstan. The question is, how feasible is this figure?”

2,3 billion rubles — to support entrepreneurship

The problems and challenges of small business development were discussed on 24 May within the walls of the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of the Republic of Tatarstan. On the eve of Day of Russian Entrepreneur, a meeting of the administration council and board of the CCI RT was held. After the welcoming speech of the hosts of the meeting — Director General of Tatneftekhiminvest-holding JSC Rafinat Yarullin and Chairman of the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Tatarstan Shamil Ageev, the participants moved to the discussion of urgent issues.

First Deputy Prime Minister Rustem Sibgatullin took the floor. He said that 2,3 billion rubles have been allocated for the development of entrepreneurship in Tatarstan in 2019. “About 400 million rubles have been spent over the first 4 months of this year,” Sibgatullin stressed.

Deputy Chairman of the CCI RT Artur Nikolaev devoted his speech to the export development of small and medium-sized businesses. According to him, the export has been growing in the last 3 years. The first place in the structure is taken by raw materials, they bring the country 214 billion rubles. The second place is taken by the non-energy sector (149 billion rubles), the energy sector rounds out the top three (85 billion rubles). As for Tatarstan, the picture is changing in the region a little. The first place is also retained by the raw materials sector, but power engineering goes the second. The third place is taken by the non-resource block.

“We expect that the agroindustrial complex will actively develop in the coming years,” Nikolaev designated the trend. However, according to the speaker, the agricultural sector also has some difficulties. The main problems are related to marketing, quality, packaging and trademarks. In addition, Russia needs to take into account the seasonality factor, weather conditions, there are difficulties with the border.”

“The working group on the export of the agro-industrial complex is being created. It is important to separate 6-7 products that are perspective, and it is necessary to promote them in the first place,” Artur Nikolaev outlined the plans.

Alena Beloglazova, the chairman of the CCI committee for support of producers and processors of agricultural products, spoke about the development of agricultural consumer cooperation.

“In order to export, one first needs to grow something. No one is interested in exporting what is everywhere. It is interesting to export a unique product. In the committee, we consider the key issues that concern both producers and processors. We have more than 50 people who actively work,” Beloglazova reported.

2,4 million self-employed by 2024

Deputy Chairman of the CCI RT Sergey Karpukhin focused on the topic of the experiment on the application of the tax regime for self-employed. According to the speaker, 2,4 million self-employed are to be registered in Russia by 2024 within the framework of the federal project “Improvement of Business Conditions”. By 2019, this figure is to be 200,000 people. Tatarstan has assumed the bar of 60,000.

“It's almost a quarter of the entire federal mass. The question is, how feasible is this figure? Over 4 months of this year, 11,000 people have been registered as self-employed in the republic. With such dynamics by the end of the year it will be possible to register only about 40,000 people,” Karpukhin declared.

Speaking about tax revenues, the speaker noted that by the end of April the tax contribution from self-employed amounted to 4,6 million rubles. At the same time, a month earlier, the self-employed paid 1,8 million rubles to the treasury.

“Such increase in indicators says that in statistics includes sleeping self-employed who don't carry out any activity but have been registered just in case,” Karpukhin explained.

The most important issue that needs to be resolved today is the fear of the self-employed to work in the legal field. “A simple example — home confectioners. They are afraid of inspections of Rospotrebnadzor because there are so many conditions that one can go crazy,” said the deputy chairman of the CCI.

Another difficulty is that at the legislative level the procedure for maintaining accounts for self-employed has not yet been regulated. The third problem concerns people of retirement age.

“A large layer of self-employed are pensioners. Still, the position has not been announced on whether they will lose the right to pension indexation if they register,” Sergey Karpukhin concluded.

Cooperation between the CCI and the Union of Journalists

Deputy Chairman of the CCI RT Elena Ageeva raised the issue of the development of national projects on the territory of the republic. “We are proposing to create a committee on the implementation of national projects at the CCI RT. We are proposing to create a project office, which would cover entrepreneurship,” Ageev asked to support the initiative.

At the end of the event, an agreement on cooperation between the CCI RT and the Union of Journalists of the Republic of Tatarstan was signed. The signatures under the document were put by Chairman of the CCI RT Shamil Ageev and Chairman of the Union of Journalists of the Republic of Tatarstan Ilshat Aminov.

“We have been cooperating with the CII for a long time. I thank Shamil Rakhimovich for his honest, open position, which he has the courage to always express. Especially when it comes to supporting entrepreneurship. Our task is to help each individual entrepreneur. Since September, we are beginning the indefinite campaign ‘Our business’, where we will talk about entrepreneurs and the problems that they have. The CCI RT is the locomotive of this process. Your support is very important for us, we appreciate it,” Ilshat Aminov expressed his gratitude.

The meeting ended with the signing of the agreement on the implementation of the project “Bioplasma” at the PSEDA and the presentation of membership cards.