Deputy Minister of Agriculture Elena Fastova held a conference call on the implementation of the concessional lending mechanism.
Elena Fastova noted that in order to fulfill the task of financially supporting the sowing campaign and the necessary set of spring field work, the Ministry of Agriculture of Russia carried out work to refine the plan of soft loans for borrowers for 2020, and on March 30, 2020 its new version was approved. In the framework of the above plan, by 10%, or 400 million rubles, the annual limit for the volume of subsidies for soft loans in the direction of Plant Growing was increased. In addition, for regions of the Russian Federation that have an additional need for subsidies for lending to small business organizations, the limit of subsidies in the direction of "Small business forms" has been increased by 222,5 million rubles.
The Deputy Minister said that in order to provide preferential short-term loans in the Russian Federation in accordance with the updated plan for preferential lending to borrowers, budget allocations in the amount of 20,51 billion rubles were provided, including 10,96 billion rubles for the issuance of new loans. 70,37 billion rubles are provided for the provision of preferential investment loans, including 5 billion rubles for the issuance of new loans.
During the meeting, it was noted that the authorized banks in the face of deteriorating conditions in the Russian and international financial markets need to ensure that the conditions for lending to small businesses, representatives of medium and large businesses are preserved. Also, banks need to maximize efforts to increase the speed of consideration and approval of incoming applications for the provision of soft loans. “Including for a successful sowing campaign in the regions of the country, banks need to ensure the functioning of their territorial divisions to issue loans and service applications for concessional lending,” said Elena Fastova.
During the meeting, the Deputy Minister drew particular attention to the importance of releasing subsidies on already approved applications. According to Elena Fastova, authorized banks and regions need to ensure the effective and efficient use of funds provided for by the Concessional Credit Plan for 2020.
