Alexander Murychev, Chairman of the FBA EAC Board, took part in the XXI Interregional Conference “Regional Financial Market: State and Prospects, Role in the Socio-Economic Development of Regions”
On the 27th of March, 2025, Alexander Murychev, Chairman of the FBA EAC Board, Vice-President of the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs, spoke at the XXI Interregional Conference. He noted that at the current stage the Russian economy continues to face serious challenges caused by both external and internal factors.
On the external track, despite some warming of relations with the US, the sanctions pressure is not weakening. Large-scale external restrictions imposed on Russia continue to affect key sectors such as energy, finance, transport and engineering. At the same time, business and the government are actively working on building new logistics and trade chains.
On the internal track, at the end of 2024, Russia's GDP grew by 4.1%, breaking the 200 trillion rubles mark for the first time: the biggest impact was the growth of value added in the sectors such as information and communications, hotels and restaurants, wholesale and retail trade, and manufacturing.
At the same time, under the conditions of uncertainty and tight monetary policy, many enterprises are experiencing difficulties with long-term financial planning, as well as with the implementation of major investment projects, many of which will be hard to realize without significant support from the state – previously they were at the start-up stage, but now they are frozen. There is a situation in which it is realistic to complete only those investment projects that are at the final stage of implementation. This is especially true for high-tech industries, where one needs to attract significant resources.
Import substitution and technological sovereignty as priority areas are also highly dependent on investment, since reducing the dependence on foreign technologies, equipment and software is undoubtedly part of Russia's economic security.
Thus, financial stability of enterprises and attraction of resources are the most important components of further development of the economy.
Changes in the key rate during 2024 have fully influenced the answers of companies as to the credit rate at which they could get borrowed funds. If in 2023 only one fifth of respondents expected a rate in the range from 18 to 25% per annum, in the reporting period this was already reported by 41.3% of companies. However, the most alarming is the change in expectations of a rate exceeding 25% p.a.: a year ago, only 0.7% of respondents indicated this option, while in 2024 it was mentioned by 38.5% of participants.
As a result, by the end of 2024, problems related to the lack of working capital and inaccessibility of borrowed funds have become more acute.
Non-payments by counterparties, continued Alexander Murychev, are also among the main problems for businesses. This problem became most acute in the third quarter of 2024, when it was mentioned by 36% of respondents.
Furthermore, in February 2025, a survey was conducted, as part of which the RSPP member companies were asked to assess the impact of the current level of the key rate on the company's operations.
Three quarters of companies noted an increase in accounts receivable in January 2025 compared to the same period last year, although the majority of companies saw an increase of less than 20%.
Estimates of the growth of accounts payable for the same period have similar values. Almost 65% of respondents note the growth of accounts payable, but in most cases it is moderate.
In this regard, the following proposals were developed at the Financial Forum of the Russian Business Week, which took place on the 18th of February, 2025, as well as at the Congress of the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs:
— to introduce comprehensive monitoring of the non-payment situation;
— to stimulate timely settlement of contracts;
— to ensure that state corporations repay their accounts receivable and reduce pressure on industrial companies;
— to ensure the 75% prepayment for state orders;
— to introduce targeted anti-crisis measures to subsidize soft loans for the provision of working capital to enterprises that have a pre-default status.