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Supporting Youth Entrepreneurship in the G20 Countries

Supporting Youth Entrepreneurship in the G20 Countries

KEY CONCLUSIONS 

Russia offers multiple tools to support youth entrepreneurship

“There is a wide range of institutions and organizations that support youth. Yesterday, President Vladimir Putin told us about a recently signed decree on establishing an organization called Russia – Land of Opportunity. The Presidential Executive Office just finalized the Leaders of Russia national management competition,” Aleksey Ivanchenko, Deputy Chairman of the Management Board, Member of the Management Board, State Corporation Bank for Development and Foreign Economic Affairs (Vnesheconombank) 

“Regions have a network of export support centres. They work closely together with the Russian Export Centre. Proactive business community, efforts of OPORA Russia, Delovaya Rossiya or the Chamber of Commerce and Industry are capable of resolving the issue of financing business trips. We also offer international business missions with the support of the Export Centre,” Olesya Teterina, Deputy Director of the Department for Development of Small and Medium-sized Enterprises and Competition of the Ministry of Economic Development of Russia.

“Today each one of you can come to their local departments for SME support and request business trip financing assistance (to the Youth20 summit, Ed.). I receive support for participating in exhibitions. I do export now and have all necessary certificates,” Vladimir Orekhov, General Director, Toy Company.

Youth association of G20 is an efficient tool for international cooperation

“The youth entrepreneurial 20 <…> unites more than 500 thousand entrepreneurs in 20 countries. The recommendations developed by the young entrepreneurs of the G20 countries make their way to final decision makers of the G20. Implementation of these recommendations is being closely monitored. There is a compliance mechanism, that is, the countries fulfil the obligations they take upon themselves,” Viktor Sedov, President, Centre for Entrepreneurship.

Development of youth entrepreneurship comes to grips with unemployment

“Youth unemployment rate is very high. If you are under 25, the probability of you being put out of a job increases threefold. Entrepreneurship and its development is an excellent way to create employment. A special study by Global Entrepreneurship Monitor shows: 20% of young entrepreneurs interviewed claim that they will hire at least 20 employees in the next five year; 9% – about 50 employees. This is what development of youth entrepreneurship does,” Victor Sedov.

PROBLEMS

Low entrepreneurial activity

“Unfortunately, the level of entrepreneurial activity in Russia is very low – only 2–2.5%. Sadly, the young prefer to work in state corporations or in some prestigious major agencies. This does not facilitate development of the country, because it is business that provides the main surplus value and replenishment of the budget. Even the European countries with the lowest level of entrepreneurship are at 5–7%, but you can find double-digit numbers as well,” David Yakobashvili, President of OOO Orion Heritage.

Talent outflow

“Unfortunately, last year alone 40 thousand progressive clever young people left the country to live and work abroad. They work in hi-tech innovative businesses. Many of them, being just 25–26 years, old pulled off an ICO and raised USD 100 million. They have creative minds. For reference, only 12 thousand left the country in 2016, and 40 thousand in 2017,” David Yakobashvili.

Start-ups at further stages are neglected

“What is the main issue of start-uppers and innovators today? They do get support to a certain extent. For example, there is the Skolkovo Foundation; there is the Internet Initiatives Development Fund. But they help to a certain point, and then they hit the ceiling. There are three ways out. The first is to go abroad. In most cases, they sell their ideas there quite cheaply. The second option for those who stay is to apply for more grants for some supposedly new ideas, but in fact just to cover the costs of those old ideas. Well, the third option, they just die as start-ups,” Aleksey Ivanchenko.

Regional development institutions operate unevenly

“We realise that the real problem is that all support is fragmented. Each regional development institution operates in its own direction, works with its own target audience, and this does not always lead to global impact. For now we give a general guideline to the regions to consolidate all these institutions under one roof. <…> Regions will come to this solution, but not as fast as we wish they would,” Olesya Teterina

SOLUTIONS

Support start-ups at all phases

“VEB as a development institution has set itself a goal to occupy the support niche for ideas and start-ups in further phases of development, in order to give them a chance to go from an idea to a real business, to accelerate them, so that if a project or an idea has a good export potential, help them enter the markets,” Aleksey Ivanchenko.

Young entrepreneurs need the sense of security 

“Young people need confidence in the future, that the terms of the game will remain the same. Every person who starts doing something wants to be sure that after 5–6 years they would be able to build their own little business, feed their family, benefit their community and the state,” David Yakobashvili.

Proactive integration of young entrepreneurs into the international community

“At the Youth G20, Russia is represented by colleagues who can hardly qualify as young entrepreneurs. We should work towards this to progress economically and politically. We should smoothly integrate young entrepreneurs into the international community, because if we do not do this today, in 10–15 years we are going to face the consequences in the economic agenda,” Artem Androsov, Chairman of the Committee for Youth Entrepreneurship, OPORA Russia.

Large-scale promotion of entrepreneurship in Russia

“I want to give you an example of Ideya na Million, a TV show that we (VEB, Ed.) came up together with NTV Company. We pursued two goals. The first is pragmatic. As a development institution we needed start-up ideas that could then be scaled. The second goal is, of course, promoting the image of an innovator, entrepreneur vs. a state clerk,” Aleksey Ivanchenko.


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