On April 6, 2021 the Accounts Chamber of the Russian Federation jointly with its foreign colleagues held a multilateral seminar on the business and industry support and the digitalization and innovation development within the COVID-19 pandemic.

During the seminar the SAIs participants from Bahrain, China, India, Indonesia, Slovenia and Chelyabinsk regional audit institution discussed the pandemic impact on the economy and shared the results of the state support monitoring measures for the economy.

The Accounts Chamber of the Russian Federation was represented by Yury Ursu, Director of the Digital Development and Government Support for Entrepreneurship Audit Department, and Tatiana Bozhieva, Head of the Inspection for Innovative Development of the Education, Science and Innovation Audit Department. Timur Makhmutov, Department for International and Regional Cooperation Director, took on the moderator role.

During the presentation, Yury Ursu highlighted the financial and non-financial business support measures that have been implemented by the Russian Government since spring 2020:

• Interest-free loans for up to 12 months (signed more than 39 thousand loan agreements with more than RUB 94 bln in total);
• Soft loans to support employment and the activity resumption (signed more than 227 thousand loan agreements with more than RUB 442 bln in total; the number of jobs supported by the borrowers amounted to 5.4 mln people);
• The soft lending program expansion for the small and medium-sized businesses at the rate 8.5% per annum (according to the Ministry of Economic Development of the Russian Federation in 2020 under the soft lending program have been signed 20 thousand loan agreements with RUB 1.3 tln in total);
• A loan payment deferral issued to the small and medium-sized businesses (745 borrowers received a loan portfolio deferral with RUB 19 bln in total).

“The measures taken have reduced the effect of the pandemic negative spread and the imposed restrictive measures,”

— Yury Ursu added during his presentation.

Tatiana Bozhieva devoted her presentation to the innovative development of Russian economy within the COVID-19 pandemic.

“In the first half of 2020 during the pandemic peak significantly decreased the volume of investments in high-risk innovation projects – the main source of funding for innovation. The volume of investments for the first six months of 2020 amounted to USD 431 mln that is 43% less over the same period in 2019. Primarily this is due to the decrease in the volume of private and corporate venture capital investments and the significant decline in the size of investments at the initial stages of innovative projects,”

— declared Tatiana Bozhieva.

Presentations and comments were also made by:

• Ahmed Buti, Audit Manager, Regularity Audit Directorate, National audit office of Bahrain;
• Wang Aimei, Director General, Department of Revenue Audit, National Audit Office of China (CNAO);
• Zoran Mladenovič, Member of the President's Cabinet, Head of the Analytical Service,
  Court of Audit of the Republic of Slovenia;
• Gaurav Rai, Deputy Director, Office of the Comptroller and Auditor General of India;
• Thopan Aji Pratama, Senior Auditor, Audit Board of the Republic of Indonesia;
• Alexei Loshkin, Chairman, Chamber of Control and Accounts of Chelyabinsk region.

In total, the seminar was attended by more than 130 people: representatives of the Accounts Chamber of the Russian Federation, foreign SAIs, and regional audit institutions of the constitutive entities of the Russian Federation.

Participants will resume the discussion of the state support for business and innovative development within the COVID-19 pandemic at the INTOSAI International Scientific and Practical Conference on April 21-22, 2021.