MOSCOW, November 7. /TASS/. Over 60% of Russian entrepreneurs pointed to the decline in domestic demand as the main problem they are up against now. This is according to a survey conducted by the office of the institute of Russia’s Presidential Commissioner for Entrepreneurs' Rights among businessmen in October 2022.

The survey involved 5,760 entrepreneurs from all regions of the country. In particular, 74% of respondents belong to the micro business sector, 21% to small businesses, 3.4% to mid-sized businesses and 1.6% to large businesses. Twenty-three percent of respondents are engaged in in the non-food products sector, another 11% in food, 8% in catering, and 7.5% each in manufacturing, construction and building materials, 7.3% in the consumer services sector, 5.2% in agriculture and forestry, 3.9% in education, and 3.5% in the hotel and tourism business. Each of the other industries does not exceed a share of 3% of the total number of respondents.

"Sixty-four percent of entrepreneurs picked this particular factor as the thing that most negatively affect their business. The next ones in terms of severity are shortage of personnel (34.2%), shortage of working capital and cash gaps (28.9%), supply chain gaps (26.5 %), and the complexity of import delivery (19.1%)," the survey results reveal.

According to the report, the partial mobilization introduced in Russia did not affect the teams of the majority of respondents (66%), while 34% reported that part of their employees were called up.

"More than half (58.6%) of those whose employees were mobilized did not need to replace these employees, or a replacement was found very quickly, and only 19% could not find a replacement for drop-out employees so far," the report says.

As the authors of the survey noted, 26.7% of respondents reported that they were unable to find analogues of critically important foreign products or services that are no longer supplied to Russia due to sanctions. However, the majority still managed to find new suppliers of the same (23.6%) or similar products, both in Russia (22.3%) and abroad (13.5%).

As for the impact of sanctions, entrepreneurs gave different assessments. More than half (55.4%) have fully adapted or continue to adapt to the West’s anti-Russia sanctions.

"That is, most of the community withstood the aftermath of the sanctions," the institute's office stated. Anyway, 10.5% of the polled participants said that they could not cope with the consequences of the sanctions, and 16.3% did not notice them at all. Regarding the assessment of the state of their own business, only 6% of respondents said that they had to close their businesses or will have to do so soon.

Support measures and government work

Among the state support measures already taken, the entrepreneurs most highly appreciated the moratorium on inspections (52.2%), reduction of rates of the simplified system of taxation and property tax rates in the regions (37.4%), soft loans for SMEs for backbone companies (23.9%), and the suspension of new requirements for labeling goods (22.7%). The survey’s authors noted that the respondents were allowed to give a multiple choice answer to this question.

The measures the entrepreneurs would like the government to take in the future include writing off part of taxes, cutting insurance premiums to 15% of the total salary, cheaper and more accessible revolving loans, as well as the freezing of tariffs for natural monopolies.

According to the poll, 40.9% of respondents believe that the government's work in terms of import substitution and the development of domestic production in Russia is the right move. However, the respondents also note that the volume of measures taken is still insufficient, and 8% believe that the actions of the authorities have already significantly improved the situation.