Major development institutions, TASS News Agency, and the Roscongress Foundation will establish unified standards and develop a common platform to gather and present information about state support measures for business
A resource will be created in Russia to unite information about state support measures for business. A corresponding agreement was reached during SPIEF 2017 by the Agency for Strategic Initiatives, Vnesheconombank, the SME Corporation, Industrial Development Fund, Russian Direct Investment Fund, Roscongress Foundation, and TASS Russian News Agency.
The agreement will be open to new members, including regional development institutions. The new project will become a stimulus for entrepreneurial and investment activities by simplifying the search for relevant information about support measures provided by federal and regional development institutions.
“ASI has always paid attention to the problem of the low level of integration among development institutions, which is due to the lack of a common communication strategy and a ‘single entry point’, ASI General Director Svetlana Chupsheva noted. “So we are happy and will do everything we can to support the initiative to create such an alliance.”
Major development institutions – ASI, the SME Corporation, VEB, the Industrial Development Fund, the Russian Direct Investment Fund as well as the Roscongress Foundation and TASS – intend to agree on common standards to gather and present information taking into account existing resources such as the SME Corporation’s Business Navigation Portal. SME Corporation CEO Alexander Braverman said: “Through improvements in cooperation between development institutions, portal users will be able to obtain more relevant and comprehensive information about all types of support measures.”
The alliance members will interact as part of a single protocol based on the principle of crowdsourcing – each organization will independently publish its own information and in return will gain access to the data of other members of the alliance.
“The resource that is being set up will also be used in the interests of various platforms to promote the country’s investment potential such as the portal investinregions.ru, which the Roscongress Foundation has been responsible for promoting since 2017,” Roscongress Foundation CEO Alexander Stuglev said.
Vnesheconombank Deputy Chairman Alexey Ivanchenko said VEB welcomes the creation of a unified base of support measures, especially regional measures. “VEB is committed to proactive support for priority development projects. For this purpose, we are creating a network of our certified managers in the regions who will search for potential investment projects for VEB in accordance with our requirements and priorities. The aggregator will become a working tool for them and will enable them to build a unified communications environment with business. This means that we will find interesting projects more efficiently and quickly as well as attract investments from the bank and other development institutions for them,” Mr. Ivanchenko said.
The new service will operate on the basis of an open data aggregator – the TASS-Business platform. ITAR-TASS General Director Sergei Mikhailov said: “Each user will be able to adapt the service to his/her needs. Entrepreneurs’ access to basic information about support measures posted on the platform will be free.” In addition, the project’s commercial component will feature additional services using the collected data in the interests of market participants and to support and develop the project.
“By accumulating information about existing state support measures, the unified digital platform could become an information foundation for Russian entrepreneurs and enable them to enter federal and regional markets,” Adviser to the President of the Russian Federation Anton Kobyakov said.
