The mood of small and medium -sized businesses for the coming months has grown up
At the end of the first quarter, the business activity of small business was gradually restored after the recession, the RSBI index indicates. However, the restoration was more based on the emotional assessments of the companies surveyed, and not on the actual state of affairs: entrepreneurs hope for the growth of revenue and the expansion of the state on the horizon of the next months. High interest rates on loans, meanwhile, continue to limit the availability of funding for small businesses – the credit activity of the SMEs has decreased in March to a minimum with the “Covid” autumn 2020.
In March, the business activity of small and medium -sized businesses increased somewhat due to optimistic expectations for the coming months, follows from the RSBI index (PSB is calculated, the “Russian Market Research Magram Market Research is calculated according to the results of a survey of 1.8 thousand companies). The value of this indicator increased to 52.7 points after 51.7 in February. Recall that the previous surveys recorded the pessimism of companies, observed from the second half of 2024. This was due to the reduction in the financial capabilities of the SME (see “Kommersant” dated September 21, 2024).
In March, for a maximum of five months, a sales component came out. However, it still remains in the negative zone (below the mark of 50 points): 47.3 points after 44 points in February. The share of revenue expanding revenue increased only to 12% (from 10% in February), but almost half of the respondents declared its reduction – 47%. At the same time, the business counts on the spring revitalization of demand and the corresponding sales restoration already at the beginning of the second quarter: 40% of companies are waiting for growth (7 percentage points are more than in February), and 16% (4 p. Less).
The actual hiring of employees turned out to be restrained in March: the proportion of companies that expanded the staff increased by 1 p., To 11%, the share of reduced remained at a high level of 20%. At the same time, the business actively built personnel plans: they plan to expand the staff 29% SME (plus 5 p.), Reduce – the minimum from the beginning of 2024 4% (minus 2 p.). Note that the divergence of the actual situation with expectations for the personnel component is recorded for more than a month (See “Kommersant” from February 20). Their provision remains low, while small companies cannot increase hiring – many of them lose competition for employees of large businesses.
Slightly – by 1 p. P. – increased in March the investment component: it returned to the level of December 2024 and amounted to 57 points. The investmentivity of the companies, let’s explain, is restrained by the lack of its own funds and the low availability of financing: the component of loans at the end of the first quarter decreased to 53.5 points (in February – 56.3 points) – this is at least from the “covid” in the fall of 2020. The main obstacle to obtaining loans 33% of respondents called high interest rates – the indicator turned out to be a record for the entire observation time. The share of refusals in the approval of the loan is also increasing: among the submitted applications, only half of the SME received approval.
“Against the background of maintaining a high key rate and related disinteresting entrepreneurs in lending on current conditions, companies are still forced to postpone the implementation of projects. Most of all, the factor of high bets is reflected in the field of production, where more large-scale investments are often required, ”said Kirill Tikhonov, senior vice-president, deputy head of the PSB Small and Medium Enterprise Bloc.
