Do Russian small businesses need a new strategy?

The article aims to summarize some interim results of the implementation of the adopted in 2015 Strategy for the development of Russian small and medium-sized businesses until 2030, as well as to determine how this strategic planning document meets new conditions, which have appeared in the Russian economy, and in particular in the small and medium-sized business sector by 2020. The authors focus on both stronger and less successful provisions of the Strategy for the development of Russian SMEs, and also consider it necessary to determine how the Strategy mentioned above “fits” into the general outline of strategic planning documents, defined by the 172nd Federal Law on strategic planning. The article analyzes the difficulties, which currently accompany the implementation of the Strategy for the development of Russian SMEs and contains assumptions about the possibility of technical implementation of target indicators for the development of the SME sector in the Russian economy, fixed in the Strategyfor the development of SMEs until 2030. The attention is drawn to the role of the national project “Small and medium-sized entrepreneurship and support for individual entrepreneurial initiative”, which can be considered as a reference point and action plan for the initial period of the implementation of the Strategy for SMEs development until 2030. The article focuses on the discussion of whether the Strategy for the development of SMEs until 2030 can be considered a real “working” document of public administration, or whether this vector of socio-economic policy of the state currently needs a new strategic concept, a new goal-setting methodology, a more detailed system of institutions and tools, and the disclosure of the spatial “cross-section” of public policy devoted to the SME sector, taking into account the strengthening of the role of regional and municipal management.