Russian govt generally supports subsidizing access to capital markets, discussions with individual agencies continue - Central Bank Governor Nabiullina

MOSCOW. Oct 28 (Interfax) - The proposals of the Central Bank of the Russia to subsidize companies' entering into the equity capital market have been generally supported, and discussions with individual government agencies on the matter are underway, Central Bank Governor Elvira Nabiullina said.

The government has generally supported the CBR's proposals to subsidize companies' entering the equity capital market, though discussions with individual agencies on the mature continue, Nabiullina said.

"We have been talking much about the need to subsidize not only loans, though also non-discriminatory approaches to other forms of financing, primarily equity capital. We have proposed this to the government, reached our proposals, and the government has generally supported them so as to redistribute government state support from preferential loans to equity issuers and support more non-inflationary forms of financing. We believe it is time to do this. Discussions with individual ministries and agencies are still ongoing, but we believe this is truly crucial," Nabiullina said during the joint meeting of the State Duma committees examining the Main Directions of the Unified State Monetary Policy for 2026 and the Period 2027-2028.

Nabiullina spoke at the Federation Council on Tuesday, and Chistyukhin said the discussions have not yet been finalized.

Nabiullina said that in order "to reverse the tendency to rush to the bank for a loan at any moment, we should attempt creating preferential conditions that encourage issuers and corporations, namely large, medium, and small - to enter the stock market, primarily the equity market, namely the stock market in order to issue shares and to fund their projects through this market."

"We have been working with the Finance Ministry for some time to extend the subsidies currently applied to loans to share issuance as well. However, we have not been able to reach a conclusion. We have several disagreements with individual industry ministries. They are likely concerned that introducing the latest new benefit the existing loan subsidy mechanism will be by," Nabiullina said, emphasizing that the Central Bank is not proposing to eliminate loan subsidies altogether.

Nabiullina previously said that the Finance Ministry and the Economic Development Ministry support jointly supported the Central Bank's proposals to subsidize access to equity capital markets, and the regulator hopes to convince industry ministries that have raised concerns about the need to implement this mechanism.