State support for small and medium-sized enterprises and territories’ development

Small and medium business is a driver of Russia’s economic development in terms of ensuring its industrial and fi nancial sovereignty, which determines the relevance of solving the problem of its state support. Such support is necessary for small and medium-sized business to develop new economic niches, apply new technologies and innovations, arrange territories, preserve existing and create new jobs in SMEs, and ensure sustainability of territories’ development. The aim of the research is to identify the impact of small and medium-sized enterprises on territorial development to work out practical directions and volumes of improvement of its state support. The novelty of the problem formulation and solution is determined by the fact that until the present in Russian regions, the choice of directions and benefi ciaries of support has been mainly based on attempts to achieve such quantitative parameters as increasing the contribution of SMEs to GRP, to employment growth compared to the base level of the corresponding indicators achieved in the territory and taking into account the support practices existing in developed countries. In contrast to the implemented approaches, we propose, fi rst, to determine the degree of need of the territory’s SME sector in the volume and directions of support through a comprehensive analysis of its development rate; second, based on the degree of readiness of SMEs to participate in territorial development, to formulate priority areas of SME support, adequate to the existing external and internal conditions of socio-economic development of territories. The proposed mechanism will provide territorial administration authorities with methodological tools for in-depth analysis and assessment of the prospects for the development of territories in terms of increasing the contribution of small and medium-sized businesses as a basis for improving the sustainability of socio-economic development through state support for small and medium-sized businesses.