Meeting with deputy prime ministers on current issues

The agenda: the results of the working visit to Turkmenistan, the development of small and medium-sized businesses, establishing educational and production clusters within the framework of the Professional Training national project.

Mikhail Mishustin's opening remarks

Alexander Novak's report on the development of small and medium-sized businesses

Dmitry Chernyshenko's report on establishing educational and production clusters within the framework of the Professional Training national project

Excerpts from the transcript:

Mikhail Mishustin: Good morning, colleagues.

Last week, we paid a working visit to Turkmenistan. We held substantive talks with the leadership of Turkmenistan, reviewed the implementation of joint projects in great detail and charted long-term measures for expanding bilateral economic and investment ties. We took part in a meeting of the Council of Heads of Government of the Commonwealth of Independent States which will mark its 35^th anniversary later this year.

As the President has noted, the CIS has asserted itself during this period an influential regional integration association. We were able to establish a common market and a common cultural and humanitarian space. Our colleagues, heads of government, and we discussed issues of strengthening cooperation in trade, in the field of culture, education and other spheres.

We approved a number of significant documents, including a concept for the digital transformation of our countries' mining and metallurgical sectors, a concept for merging the main transport arteries passing via the territory of CIS member states. We will continue active and well-coordinated work to integrate modern information technologies into the industry and to make production facilities more cost-effective. It is necessary to expedite the creation of an integrated CIS transport system for facilitating rapid and safe traffic; this can be accomplished by upgrading infrastructure solutions, developing logistics and multi-modal routes.

Colleagues, I would like to ask you to monitor the fulfilment of specific agreements (that have been reached, and which are backed by the relevant documents) within your remit.

I would now like to remind you about an important date. Our meeting is taking place ahead of Russian Entrepreneurship Day which was instituted after the President approved a law on the development of small and medium-sized businesses almost two decades ago. You see, this sector is a key driver of multiple improvements that the people need, in the regions, in the sphere of services and creative industries. These sectors give rise to promising breakthrough ideas that later become a foundation for technological innovations.

To assist it, the Government has suggested multiple measures. We are implementing a specialised federal project, and we stipulate incentives for the industry, tourism and the information technologies sector. We fine-tune supporting tools using feedback. By May 2026, the number of small and medium-sized businesses reached almost seven million, an all-time high in the past ten years, when we started keeping their list.

Mr Alexander Novak, please tell us how small and medium-sized businesses are developing.

: Mr Mishustin,

As you have noted, the number of small and medium-sized businesses continues to grow steadily despite external restrictions and a challenging environment. Today, there are 7 million entrepreneurs and 19 million employees in this sector. The number of newly incorporated companies grows as well. As of May 1 of this year, they numbered 1.5 million, 4.2 percent more than in the same period last year.

The sector's quality is changing as well. There are more businesses created in manufacturing industries, the IT sector, and creative industries. Manufacturing accounts for one in every five umbrella guarantee loans.

These results follow upon systemic efforts of the last few years, including as part of the Small and Medium-Sized Entrepreneurship national project and with support from the United Russia party. Over 5 million entrepreneurs were given support while the national project was in effect.

At the same time, the sector certainly faces current challenges, such as growing costs, increased platform influence, and personnel rivalry. The economy is going through structural transformations, and the sector has to adapt. We are helping businesses in this regard.

First, we provide them with affordable loans with a focus on production. In this regard, we have launched turnkey easy-term investment credits minus 3.5 percent for small and medium-sized businesses. This primarily concerns the priority industries, such as manufacturing, hotel business, information technologies, R&D, and creative industries. The cap for this year is 50 billion roubles. Starting in July, we will join hands with banks and the MSP Corporation to launch a new lending programme for current needs with the cap of 150 billion roubles and the interest rate equal to the Bank of Russia key rate.

Umbrella-type guarantees are also working to full capacity, with 6,400 contracts worth almost 50 billion rubles signed since the start of this year.

Second, we help them with markets and payment guarantees. A 25-percent quota has been established for small and medium-sized businesses in major customers' procurement. The amount of these purchases has exceeded 2 trillion roubles since the start of this year. Here we see a problem for small and medium-sized businesses, expressed in payment delays on the part of major customers. Not so long ago, we discussed this problem with entrepreneurs in Krasnoyarsk.

The Ministry of Economic Development has created an emergency team that considers specific cases jointly with the Federal Anti-Monopoly Service and the MSP Corporation. There are some results. Since the start of this year, nearly 60 percent of contested arrears has been paid to small and medium-sized businesses on the out-of-court basis.

We are also preparing two systemic decisions: e-work acceptance certificates under Federal Law #223 to prevent customers from travelling to sign them, and a move to synchronise the amount of fines in order to equalise the conditions for suppliers and customers.

Promoting the platform economy is an additional opportunity for small and medium-sized businesses to sell their products.

There are one million sellers on the platforms today, with 80 percent of them being small and medium-sized businesses. On October 1, the platform economy law will come into force. We have submitted all the bylaws to the Government, and part of these have been accepted.

Yet another focal point is increasing labour productivity in the small and medium-sized entrepreneurship sector. Businesses have to work on reducing their costs. We help them to interact with their personnel, popularise best practices, introduce technologies, and help to introduce AI.

Fourth, supporting certain social groups.

In this regard, the SME sector has even greater social significance. Therefore, it is particularly important to help veterans of the special military operation and entrepreneur mothers. We work with them at My Business centres. Unified recommendations have been drawn up for working with these categories.

Yet another focal area is developing the small and medium-sized entrepreneurship infrastructure. We have created 400 My Business centres across the country, in all constituent entities of the Russian Federation. These operate as front offices of the SME platform, with 1.6 million users registered. Over 1.8 million legal services have been rendered.

At our President's instructions, we are planning to create 100 technological and business parks. Last year, we selected 31 projects in 25 regions. Currently, we are accepting applications for next year.

Mr Mishustin, in conclusion I would like to stress that small and medium businesses are driving the structural change in the economy. It is quite important to render them targeted and pinpoint support measures meeting the current challenges. We maintain a running dialogue with entrepreneurs. We constantly adjust these support measures subject to business needs.

Mikhail Mishustin: It is very important to continue assisting enterprises in responding to all the current challenges. In particular, these are the issues caused by higher labour productivity and establishing relations - what the small business is concerned about - with major companies, corporations and platforms. Given that we mean not only business but the people engaged in it. And, of course, we should not overlook veterans of the special military operation.

Taking this opportunity, I want to greet cordially all Russian business people on their professional holiday and wish them success and achievement for the benefit of the entire country.

Another topic. At present, many enterprises of industrial sectors, agriculture, metallurgy, electronics, pharmaceuticals, construction, aircraft- and ship-building are in dire need of personnel. The President has repeatedly emphasised that our labour market should have a prevailing share of skilled employment, that is specialist employed in a production with high added value. And the system of vocational training must provide for such transformation.

To resolve the problem, the Government launched the Professionalism project intended to give students knowledge and skills best approximated to real production processes. Currently, almost all the country (86 regions) has over 600 clusters set up through colleges and enterprises integration in 24 key areas. Most of them in the real economy, especially in machine-building and agriculture.

The Professionalism project has already involved about 1,700 colleges - almost a half of all secondary vocational education institutions - and more than 3,000 enterprises, which invested in the project over 10 billion roubles.

We annually create tens of clusters on a competitive basis. And applications keep coming from across Russia - from Kaliningrad to Sakhalin. It means that the project is of interest not only to colleges but also, which is key, to enterprises, prospective employers to whom the graduates will come to work.

Another selection is over; its results have been summed up.

Mr Chernyshenko, tell us, please, in greater detail what training and production centres will start operating as early as next year.

Dmitry Chernyshenko: Mr Mishustin, colleagues. This contest for establishing clusters under the Professionalism project received 389 applications in 22 sectors. Most wanted fields (which received most applications) are machine-building, metallurgy, agriculture, construction, information technologies, and pedagogy. In the end, 95 clusters have been selected.

The project will involve another 430 colleges and over 620 corporate employers. It is important that the companies are prepared to invest approximately 2.6 billion roubles and the regions are to allocate about 4.4 billion roubles for developing the clusters.

In general, Professionalism clusters (87 Russian regions will boast 696 clusters in total in 2027)are training more than 2 million young people. They use some 3,000 educational programs, and we are going to create 981 clusters at your instruction to train about 3.7 million people by 2030.

We select the winners of the contest based on key criteria. Priority criteria include the amount of investment from the regional budget and the partners (companies). We also certainly take into account the students' coverage, the availability of partners and, of course, whether the educational programmes meet the current requirements of local employers.

Mr Mishustin, as you have noted, one of the tasks implied by the Professionalism project is to let students receive knowledge and skills that can be best applied in real production processes. To this end, close ties between colleges and companies are required. This makes it possible to timely respond to the rapid changes on the labour market. You mentioned this at the recent strategic session on training engineering personnel.

Currently, employers are active in developing educational programmes and providing the students with practical work. For example, Rosatom State Corporation is a major partner of the Professionalism project. The nuclear industry cluster on the basis of the Kursk Mounting Technical School efficiently applies the mechanism of specialised training. Practically all students work at the enterprise while still in college.

Thanks to the unique equipment provided by ODK-Aviadvigatel, students of the Perm Aviation Technical College are able to train on the very latest full-scale engine models, such as the PD-14 and PS-90A.

Professionalism clusters under the Youth and Children national project have trained already over 350,000 specialists. And it is crucial that a vast majority of them - almost 90 percent - are guaranteed employment. Our plans are to train more than 600,000 graduates by the end of the current year. And by 2028, at least 1 million young professionals are expected to enter the labour market. This will make it possible to attain the goal set by our President.

We will continue to hold competitive selections and report to you on time.

Mikhail Mishustin: Mr Chernyshenko, it is also necessary to go on tuning the secondary vocational training system in accordance with the labor market demand. And build up the capacity of the Professionalism project, continue the upgrade of the colleges' facilities and equipment, update the curriculum, and create opportunities for professional development throughout the career.

Please, keep this work under control.