Where is the subsidy?

According to Natalia Chernetsova, Director of the Department of Economics and state support of agriculture of the Ministry of agriculture of the Russian Federation, at present signing agreements with entities for the provision of subsidies for the 1st quarter is in process. "Funding is defined and subsidies for capex will be one of the top priorities. A new requirement which is imposed in the current year is connected with the fact that the region should include in its budget the amount of support, taking into account the Federal share. As soon as the region starts to perform the obligation to pay subsidies, we start to transfer money," said Mrs. Chernetsova, answering a question of the correspondent of DairyNews on the timing of payment of subsidies for capex on dairy projects. "Until deficient region of the Federation, which has no money even for the salary to doctors, has money to pay its part too, Federal part will not be provided. So most likely it will be delayed for a long time", – said Pavel Grudinin, the Director of "Sovkhoz named after Lenin".

Speaking of soft loans to agricultural producers, Natalia Chernetsova noted that till February 15, the process of collection of bids from regional banks participating in the new system of subsidies is going on. "There are regions which have already exhausted the limits on the investment and short loans, including milk production, livestock breeding and so on. Today there was a meeting with Arkady Dvorkovich. In any case, decisions will be made to adjust the needs of the regions and individual areas," said Natalia Chernetsova. She promised that small and medium businesses "will not be removed" from the system of preferential crediting.

According to Andrey Klepach, Deputy Chairman of VEB (The Bank for development and foreign economic activities), subsidizing loans through banks "creates additional risks" before planting. However, the expert described the idea of a new system of subsidizing as a «right» one.

"I do not understand how bureaucratic the process of confirming the target use of subsidies is. There has never been such urgency for the provision of documents from the regions and from farms. The feeling is that the government artificially spin the flywheel", – commented Vadim Yeryzhenskiy, Deputy General Director of LLC "Prodimex".

"The old system does not work any longer and a new one hasn’t been started up yet," summed up Pavel Grudinin.

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