Transformation of the Support Strategy for Small and Medium Businesses in the Regions of Russia During the Post-Pandemic Period

Abstract

The administrative closure of a business caused by the coronavirus epidemic has postponed the issues of the quantitative and qualitative development of small businesses for an indefinite period. In these conditions, the tasks of preserving and surviving SMEs in the post-pandemic period, making new strategic decisions at both the federal and regional levels of government, which differ from the «firefighting» measures of anti-crisis support in 2020, are of particular relevance in these conditions. The aim of the study is to identify problems in the system of state support for small and medium-sized businesses at the regional level based on the analysis and assessment of its dynamics in the pre-quarantine and post-pandemic periods, as well as to determine the directions of its transformation. To achieve this goal, legislative innovations in the field of small economy were considered, regional programs for anti-crisis support for small and medium-sized businesses were analyzed; assessed the possible prospects for the development of small and medium-sized businesses in the post-crisis economy of our country, as well as strategic changes in the system of its state support. The following general scientific and special methods were chosen as scientific tools: systemic, retrospective analysis, as well as statistical survey methods. The paper concludes that there was no significant effect from those legislative innovations that were designed to reverse the negative trends in the small business sector that had developed over the three years preceding the introduction of restrictive measures in the economy. The formulation of the question of whether the use of an anti-crisis (costly) model of support for SMEs in the post-pandemic period will become a strategy for its development in the future differs in scientific novelty. The results of the study are aimed at identifying the problems that the system of state support for regional small and medium-sized businesses may face as it emerges from the pandemic, in particular, on the aggravation of the contradiction between the preservation of anti-crisis measures to support SMEs and the possibilities of financing them from regional budgets. In this regard, the question of the need to change the configuration of the existing support system for small businesses, based on methods of direct allocation of budget funds, is of particular importance. The results of the study can be applied in the formation of a strategy for the development of medium-sized entrepreneurship in the constituent entities of the Federation. As practical recommendations, proposals are presented to abandon traditional measures to support SMEs in favor of a transition to the formation of a new model, in which modern business institutions of the ecosystem of medium-sized entrepreneurship occupy a central place.