subscribe to news EXPOCENTRE hosted a discussion on involvement of SME in public procurement

On 26 May, EXPOCENTRE Fairgrounds hosted its annual procurement business breakfast on SME Procurement Quota: Increase or Abolish? How to Create Effective Mechanisms for Development of Manufacturing SMEs. The event was organised by the Russian Chamber of Commerce and Industry as part of the celebration of Russia’s Entrepreneurship Day. It was attended by representatives of business, ministries, agencies, and banks.

The business breakfast is a traditional meeting in the format of professional discussion and interested exchange of opinions. The participants discussed the dynamics of relations between suppliers and major customers in the current economic situation, the government’s approaches to developing domestic production as part of the import substitution objectives, the search for new effective solutions and setting up development programmes for manufacturing business.

The event was moderated by Elena Dybova, Vice President of the Russian Chamber of Commerce and Industry.

The Chamber’s Vice President noted that according to a survey of SMEs conducted by the Chamber of Commerce and Industry, despite sanctions and the departure of Western companies from the Russian market, which may have been favourable conditions for SME participation in public procurement, the supply of these companies to big business has barely changed over the past year and only 7% of those surveyed said that their supply had increased significantly.

During the breakfast, participants exchanged views on increasing SME participation in these procedures and agreed on the need to continue working together to involve small businesses in public procurement procedures, especially under the current conditions of ensuring import substitution.

The event was attended by Alexey Vyalkin, Director General of EXPOCENTRE, Chair of the Chamber’s Committee on Exhibition, Fair, and Convention Activity. He reminded that more than 80% of participants of EXPOCENTRE’s trade shows were representatives of small and medium businesses. There are special formats of participation for such companies, such as start-up zones and subcontract exchanges. This is a good chance for small and medium-sized enterprises to make themselves known, ensure production growth, and conclude contracts.

This year at Metalloobrabotka 2023, the subcontract exchange was held within the 1st National Forum for Industrial Cooperation and System Engineering, underlined Alexey Vyalkin. 18 customers from 13 regions of Russia and 48 suppliers from 36 Russian regions took part in the subcontract exchange. A total of 240 business negotiations took place.

Summing up the event, Elena Dybova thanked all participants for the lively and professional discussion of participation of small and medium businesses in public procurement and congratulated all participants on Russia’s Entrepreneurship Day.

Press Service, EXPOCENTRE AO

Source: Russian Chamber of Commerce and Industry