Lack of reasonable state support of small and middle-size business hinders the development of cooperation between Russian business and Latin American countries

Lack of reasonable state support of small and middle-size business hinders the development of cooperation between Russian business and Latin American countries, said president of Russian Regional Development Bank Dmitri Titov, a participant in the Business Forum in the framework of the APEC summit under way in Santiago (Chile). "While the state and business are isolated from one another, we are doomed to be outsiders on the world markets, especially on the Latin American market," Dmitri Titov believes. In his opinion, Russian entrepreneurs involved in international business must receive risks insurance, cheap loans, export guarantees, information and legal support from the state. "Large companies, such as Gazprom, can afford solving these problems on their own - they have sufficient financial and human resources. However, small and medium-size business needs state support and attention," the banker emphasized. Mr. Titov believes that without participation of small and medium-size business in foreign trade, neither its volume, nor its turnover will increase. He gave an example of a project on the assembly of KAMAZ trucks in Chile. Mr. Titov thinks that these trucks cannot be sold without established post-purchase service infrastructure, which means billions of dollars of investments for the Russian state or KAMAZ and neither of them can afford that at present.