Experts: a new mechanism of preferential crediting of agriculture does not exclude a corruption component

The possibility of corruption was seen by the experts in the rules of providing subsidized loans in cases, if the subsidy limit is insufficient to satisfy all applications.

"In case of a positive decision of the Bank (on provision of subsidized loan), the producer becomes a potential borrower. If the limit of subsidies allocated to the Bank is enough to satisfy the applications of all potential borrowers, they will receive loans at subsidized interest; if it is insufficient, the Bank will choose which producer will get a loan at a preferential interest rate or at a regular one - says the monitoring. - The rules provide that the Ministry of agriculture of the Russian Federation must establish the procedure for the transfer of producers from the registry of potential borrowers to the registry of borrowers. At present this procedure is not approved. But to eliminate corruption is hardly possible. One can get rid of this by preserving the right to subsidies for all potential borrowers."

Recalling that under the new rules the Bank in case of exhaustion of the limit of subsidy can transfer to the borrower from preferential rate to the regular one (preferential interest rate plus the key rate of the Bank of Russia), the experts draw attention to the fact that the rules do not provide the details of this procedure. "It is not clear from the rules how the contracts for which the loan rate will be increased are going to be selected. Here there also possibilities for infringement of the rights of some producers and for the saving of subsidies to others – they state. It is necessary to solve this problem through the introduction of guarantees of subsidy payments under contracts of preferential crediting, as it was in accordance with the previous rules". The disadvantage of the new mechanism according to the experts is that it does not limit the size of the investment preferential loans to one borrower. "It is advisable to limit subsidies for one person not only for short-term loans, but also for investment ones, they say. - Private owners receive annual multibillion subsidies on investment loans, while the rest get the crumbs. Equal conditions for farmers in the market are violated, which contradicts Russian law on competition".

However, the experts call the abolition of regional co-financing, the establishment of a single rate of subsidies, the simplification of the mechanism of preferential loans "steps forward" of a new mechanism of crediting. They, in particular, noted that the old rules of preferential crediting took 58 pages, the new ones - 13. As it was reported, this year there was introduced a new mechanism of preferential crediting, under which funds from the budget for subsidizing the rates are going to the banks, and farmers get loans at a subsidized rate of 5% (not more). This year for subsidizing of preferential loans, both short-term and long-term, there was allocated 21.3 billion rubles, including 11.2 billion rubles for short – term loans.

However, the industry saw the alarm that the allocated funds are not enough to obtain loans for the smooth conduct of spring sowing campaign. The Ministry of agriculture is taking additional measures to remedy the situation. In particular, it decided to allocate an additional 3.8 billion rubles to subsidize short-term loans, thus bringing the amount of subsidies to 15 billion rubles. According to the Agency based on applications from the regions, the need for loans for seasonal field works this year is 700 billion rubles, including 300-320 billion rubles for spring sowing.

As it was stated earlier by the first Deputy Minister of agriculture of Russia Dzhambulat Khatuov to "Interfax", this year the volume of subsidized loans for the spring sowing will remain at the same level as last year - 200 billion rubles.

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