The strategy for development of small and medium entrepreneurship in Russia till 2030: ambitions and realities

The article analyzes the basic propositions of the Strategy for Development of Small and Medium Entrepreneurship (SME) in the Russian Federation till 2030 and the comparison of the key parameters of this strategy with target SME development indicators, which had been earlier given in various planning and forecasting documents of the RF Government. The paper investigates the main causes of the failure with the previously declared benchmarks for a powerful “breakthrough” in this sector of the national economy, in particular, via realization of a set of goal state programs of SME promotion and development. Insufficient results of the state policy for promotion and development of SME for a long time were explained not only by its rather primitive tools, but also by its isolation from other key directions of the state economic policy and by general unsatisfactory trends in structural reforms in the Russian Federation economy. The paper also proves the need to upgrade the entire ideology of SME promoting policy in the Russian Federation taking into account the actual level of development of small business in the national economy as well as the tasks that define its priorities for the future, mainly, in the context of transition to innovative development. The author formulates the conditions under which it would be possible to implement the main parameters of a new strategy for SME development in the country. Special attention should be paid to the practical ways of coordinating state policy for promotion and development of SME with the formation of a single system for strategic planning in the Russian Federation, with the elaboration of efficient industrial policy, expansion of public-private partnership practice, etc. An important prerequisite for effective strategy making in the sphere of government policy aimed to develop and promote SME consists in its decentralization, i.e. the expansion of the functions and economic interest of sub-federal (regional and local) authorities in implementing the measures aimed to support SME.