Statement by Deputy Permanent Representative of the Russian Federation Dmitry Chumakov at the round table “Empowering Micro-, Small and Medium-sized Enterprises through Innovation and Sustainable Industrial Development”
Dear Madam Moderator, Dear Excellencies,
For developing and least developed countries alike, MSMEs remain the largest source of jobs and affordable goods and services. Once formalized, they also become a long-lasting tax base capable of financing sustainable development. The obstacle is the same all over the world: registration, banking, and tax compliance are scattered across too many channels and platforms, which creates a lot of burdensome paperwork.
Russia’s answer is the digital platform “superservice” for MSMEs – a single window that merges together business registration, access to credit from partner banks, a tax-regime selector, a real-time business rating (drawing on tax, financial, and legal registries), and now over seven hundred federal and regional support measures across the country and its regions – all matched automatically to each entrepreneur’s profile.
The results speak for themselves. The platform has helped bring one million new SMEs and fifteen million self-employed citizens into the formal economy, and tax contributions from the SME sector have doubled to 119 billion dollars.
This is not a solution for Russia alone. We have already begun sharing it: for instance, in Kyrgyzstan, where such digital tools have doubled the SME tax base.
Many countries with advanced digital economies possess similar platforms. We propose to pool this experience in partnership and to start a structured transfer of SME digital platforms to States that are willing to adopt them.
To coordinate this work and more broadly to safeguard MSMEs interests at the global level, we again put forward our proposal to establish a position of a United Nations Secretary-General’s Special Envoy for the development and protection of MSMEs, without implications for the Organization’s regular budget.
Digitalization of MSMEs services is one of the most realistic, low-cost paths available today to mobilize domestic resources and accelerate fulfillment of the 2030 Agenda.
Russia stands ready to share this technology and this experience with all interested partners.
Thank you for your attention.
