Problems and trends of small business development in the Russian Federation

Small business is an independent sector of market economy which serves basic needs of the national economy. The development of small business is currently considered as an important mechanism of economic diversification at the federal, regional and municipal level. State support of small business support is aimed at promoting sustainable development of existing enterprises. The need to ensure sustainable socio-economic development of municipal unit requires local authorities to make efforts to establish their own productive and financial territorial base, which will ensure their economic independence. One of the most important objectives in this direction is creating conditions for small business revitalization. The development of small businesses creates preconditions for accelerated economic growth, ensures local market diversification and satiety giving an opportunity to compensate for the costs of market economy such as unemployment, market fluctuations and crises. The need to prioritize the development of modern regional economy has increased scientific and practical interest to an economic issue of small business performance impact on the level of socio-economic development of the region. Therefore, the assessment of small business performance is an important starting point in justifying tactical and strategic ways of economic activity development in the region. The article studies in detail small business development trends in the Russian Federation in 2000-2014, identifies the problems of small business development at the regional and federal level. The crucial difference between this paper and similar works on this subject is the authors’ attempt to prove that throughout the formation of small business it has had the same systemic problems. In the conclusion the authors propose a set of actions for the development and support of small business at the regional level. The authors use systemic, synergistic and project approaches as well as modern research methods: economic and statistical analysis, multivariate comparative analysis, logical tabular. The materials may be used by researchers, graduate and undergraduate students and all those interested in the problems of small business development.