Belousov compared the crises of 1998, 2009 and 2020

Unlike the financial crisis of 2009, when the Russian state had to bail out banks, in the pandemic 2020, the authorities relied on helping small businesses, First Deputy Prime Minister Andrei Belousov said in an interview with RBC.

“I have survived every crisis since 1998. There was a completely different situation there, and even an order of magnitude worse than now, ”Belousov said, recalling that during the 2008-2009 crisis, the blow fell on financial markets that collapsed:“ Then they began to protect banks, just to they survived." “The main epicenter [of the CORONAVIRUS crisis] is, of course, small business, which has received the main blow,” the Deputy Prime Minister stressed.

The authorities last year launched several programs to help small businesses, mainly aimed at industries affected by the coronavirus, including the payroll 2.0 program, concessional loans at a low rate with the possibility of subsequent partial or full debt cancellation, depending on the preservation of the number of employees. it “covered almost all small businesses, medium-sized businesses and even part of large businesses in the affected industries. Judging by how many loans we had to write off, practically no one reduced the number,” Belousov said.

“We have written off more than 90% of loans issued. This is a very good result. Issued 460 billion rubles. with superfluous, almost all also have written off. Almost no one reduced the number, ”Belousov said. Under all concessional lending programs, more than 1.5 trillion rubles were issued in 2020, or about 20% of all new loans to small and medium-sized businesses per year, the Ministry of Economic Development reported. At the beginning of 2021, the authorities approved the extension of the concessional lending program for small and medium-sized businesses (FOT 3.0), with an increase in the rate from 2 to 3%.