Presenting the results of his organization’s monitoring the crisis situations in the country, Sergei Borisov, President of OPORA Rossii, or the all-Russian Public Association of Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SME), noted that the SMEs have been plagued by a number of problems since the beginning of the year, with the most stringent being high tax rates, cutthroat competition and a shortage of properly qualified staff, all amplified by the ongoing crisis.
These observations were based on the results of OPORA Rossii’s survey of the SMEs’ development conditions in crisis conditions. “Among other things, about one-third of companies reported low demand for their products and increasing cases of defaults on payments by customers.” In all, 25% of the polled SMEs are experiencing payment default problems as well as difficulties in payments of salaries.