G20 should consider state purchase from small businesses-Medvedev.

11/11 Tass 63

SEOUL, November 11 (Itar-Tass) - Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has
urged the Group of Twenty countries to consider a more active use of
government procurement mechanism with the involvement of small businesses.
"Another issue is the importance of state orders placed not only with
large companies, but also small ones," he said at a round table discussion
of the forum "The role of business in ensuring sustainable and balanced
demand." "It is not always easy for the government to make arrangements
with small businesses on supplies, because, as a rule, the supply volumes
are small," the president admitted. "But the states should pay attention
to these possible purchases," he added.
Medvedev said another important aspect of the work is stimulating
banks to work more actively with small businesses. "We in Russia have
passed this," he said noting that several special programmes have been
developed in this sphere. "It is clear that without additional incentives
it is often impossible to turn them to more active cooperation with small
businesses," said Medvedev.
The Russian president thanked the roundtable participants for active
discussion of the problems of small and medium-sized businesses. "I
believe that all the positions expressed are absolutely reasonable," he
said promising to convey them to his G20 colleagues.
He agreed with one of the discussion participants who proposed to
invite to such discussions representatives of small businesses proper.
"The main problem is that the big business speaks about small business,"
Medvedev agreed. "They have a somewhat different view on the issues,"
Medvedev believes. "And when I meet in Russia with representatives of
small businesses, they always speak about somewhat different issues than
big business."
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