Russian Vneshtorgbank will lend small and medium-sized businesses $1 billion this year, bank head Andrei Kostin said after a meeting with President Vladimir Putin last week
Published:
22 January 2004 y., Thursday
Russian Vneshtorgbank will lend small and medium-sized businesses $1 billion this year, bank head Andrei Kostin said after a meeting with President Vladimir Putin last week.
No Russian commercial bank currently has a small-business lending program, though there are a few banks that lend to small companies through funds provided by the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development.
Putin has called the small-business sector a top priority, but efforts to reform relevant legislation have done little to boost statistics.
Small and medium-sized enterprises account for less than 15 percent of gross domestic product, according to the State Statistics Committee. In the European Union that figure is close to 60 percent. If Vneshtorgbank makes good on its promise to lend out $1 billion, it would constitute the largest investment by a single organization in the direction of small-business reform.
One of the main reasons that the Russian small-business sector has not flourished is because it lacks infrastructure readily available in the West, such as lending institutions, according to a recent study by the World Institute for Development Economic Research, a United Nations-sponsored think tank.
Russia's banks have traditionally catered to small groups of industrialists, living off a lending portfolio of two or three high-volume clients. Lending programs for private individuals and small companies require the creation of an expensive retail network and more personnel for branch offices.
Šaltinis:
themoscowtimes.com
Copying, publishing, announcing any information from the News.lt portal without written permission of News.lt editorial office is prohibited.
The most popular articles
European conference promotes regional solutions to global challenges.
more »
Iceland‘s low-fare airline Iceland Express will launch regular flights by the new-generation „Boeing 737-700“ planes to about 8 different destinations from Vinius International Airport.
more »
Over 3 million people around the world have lost their jobs due to the financial crisis and, according to the UN, economic recovery is unlikely to reach those that have suffered most - poor women and children.
more »
The European Commission has today decided not to raise any objections to the public financing of infrastructure developments at three Lithuanian airports – Vilnius, Kaunas and Palanga International Airports.
more »
The European Commission has published the results of a public consultation launched in June 2009 on whether and how deadlines should be set for the migration of existing national credit transfers and direct debits to the new Single Euro Payments Area (SEPA) payment instruments.
more »
A favourable climate for innovation in the EU can speed up the transition to an eco-efficient economy and increase Europe’s global competitiveness.
more »
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the Deutsche Bundesbank have signed an agreement to provide the Fund with up to the equivalent of €15 billion (about US$22 billion).
more »
Today the European Central Bank is publishing a report entitled “Euro Money Market Survey 2009”, which illustrates the main developments in the euro money market in the second quarter of 2009, in comparison with the second quarter of 2008.
more »
New EU laws proposed for closer oversight of financial services industry, sending a strong signal to this week's G20 summit.
more »
The European Commission has repeatedly underlined that the restructuring plan of new Opel Europe must guarantee that the company will be viable in the future.
more »