The White House is transferring work on the formation of measures to counter the impact of sanctions on the economy to the operational headquarters mode – on the basis of the government commission, which dealt with support measures in the context of the “coronacrisis”. In general, the logic of the government in this direction, with the exception of emergency measures such as the allocation of state funds for the buyback of shares, continues to be anti-covid. So, for the time being, it is planned to resume soft loans for strategic enterprises, as well as for small businesses – they are also promised credit holidays.
Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin transferred the counter-sanctions activity of the White House to the same regime that was in place in the fight against the coronavirus pandemic
Photo: Alexander Miridonov, Kommersant
Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin transferred the counter-sanctions activity of the White House to the same regime that was in place in the fight against the coronavirus pandemic
Photo: Alexander Miridonov, Kommersant
The government held a regular economic meeting, metering out the measures being prepared under the new comprehensive plan to reduce the impact of sanctions – organizational measures were first announced yesterday.
So, Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin announced that he was transferring the work of the government commission on improving the sustainability of economic development to the regime of the operational headquarters.
This structure has already been used in the development of support measures in the context of the “coronacrisis”. As the prime minister emphasized, within the framework of her work, “a lot has been done to counteract the imposition of sanctions.” The Operational Headquarters will meet regularly. The commission was previously headed by First Deputy Prime Minister Andrei Belousov, now the Prime Minister himself will lead the work. Andrei Belousov will be his deputy for macroeconomic issues and federal measures, while Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin will coordinate decisions at the regional level.
The White House continues to discuss the measures themselves to respond to sanctions: in addition to the mandatory sale of 80% of foreign exchange earnings already announced on Monday and a new capital amnesty (see “Kommersant” dated March 1) the government also intends to allocate 1 trillion rubles. from the FNB for repurchase of company shares, which collapsed against the backdrop of sanctions. The list of emergency measures includes temporary restriction of exit of foreigners from Russian assets.
Support for enterprises and investment activity has so far been promised only at a conceptual level – concrete solutions, apparently, are still being worked out.
As the head of the Ministry of Economy Maxim Reshetnikov said on Instagram, as part of the preparation of a comprehensive business support plan, the government also “continues the logic of anti-COVID measures.” For backbone enterprises, Mikhail Mishustin noted, two groups of initiatives have been formed: targeted assistance to organizations in a difficult situation due to sanctions, and general economic measures. The Ministry of Economy explained to Kommersant that the department, on behalf of Andrei Belousov, is working “on the resumption of targeted measures to support backbone enterprises.” It should be noted that now there are almost 1.4 thousand such organizations. In the “covid” year 2020, a separate package of state support was formed for them, including tax deferrals, state guarantees on loans, and soft loans. According to Maxim Reshetnikov, while the ministry is monitoring the state of backbone enterprises, first of all, support (in particular, the minister promises assistance in obtaining soft loans) will affect those companies that “may have failures in their supply chains.”
Approximately in the same vein, support is also discussed. small and medium business. According to Mikhail Mishustin, the White House and the Central Bank are considering measures “combining subsidies and funding for banks that work with this sector,” apparently for preferential lending. It is also planned to “revive” credit holidays (deferred payments) – the Central Bank previously reported that they would last until the end of 2022. Yesterday, Anatoly Aksakov, head of the State Duma’s financial committee, specified that changes to the law would be made “in the near future.” The government does not stop the planned work to remove administrative barriers and excessive requirements, support investment projects, and simplify public procurement procedures.
The counter-sanctions activity of the White House is accompanied by informational: Yesterday, Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Chernyshenko announced the launch of the “Explain.rf” resource – it is intended to become a “source of verified” information about what is happening.
