15 May 2020 13:18

Russian government to allocate around 6 bln rubles from reserve fund for soft loans program as of June 1

MOSCOW. May 15 (Interfax) - The Russian government will allocate around 6 billion rubles from the country's reserve fund for the soft loans program as of June 1, 2020, Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin said during a government meeting on socio-economic issues.

"According to the order of President Vladimir Putin, a new loan program will be launched as of June 1. We will allocate around 6 billion rubles from the government's reserve fund in order to implement it," Mishustin said.

The prime minister recalled that the issue of implementing a loan program to support employment for all companies that work in the most affected sectors, as well as for socially oriented non-profit organizations (NCO), was previously considered at a government meeting. "Our task here is to help employers retain at least 90% of their employees," Mishustin said.

"As of June 1, what you have just said, a special loan program will be launched to support the employment of the affected sectors of the economy, such as businesses and socially-oriented NCO, at a rate of 2%. In this case, an order to allocate funds from of the reserve fund was also issued yesterday at a government meeting, and a government resolution today has been prepared on how this program will be implemented," Deputy Prime Minister and Chief of Staff of the Russian government Dmitry Grigorenko said.

Mishustin also noted that 12 billion rubles would be allocated in 2020 for urgent measures to provide financial support to small and medium-sized businesses from government microlending organizations.