OREANDA-NEWS. A Conference "Exports Support" organized by the Export Insurance Agency of Russia (EXIAR, VEB Group) was held in Moscow.

Russian Economic Development Minister Alexei Ulyukaev, Russian Finance Minister Anton Siluanov, Minister of Trade of the Eurasian Economic Commission Andrei Slepnev, Vnesheconombank Chairman Vladimir Dmitriev and heads of China's and Italy's export credit agencies spoke at a plenary session devoted to the state system of exports support.

Speaking before participants in the Conference, V. Dmitriev said that according to the recently approved strategy of VEB's development up to the year 2020, the amount of the Bank's industrial exports support was to increase to 700 billion rubles. And a significant part of the exports is to be financed with the use of mechanism for subsidizing interest rates. According to him, "this mechanism is one of the most important elements to support exports and it makes it possible to make Russian products more competitive in terms of price conditions".

"Currently we have sent appropriate applications for subsidizing interest rates on export credits for an amount of 14 billion rubles to the Economic Development Ministry and to the Minitryof Industry and Trade. This is a significant support for exports", said VEB's Chairman.

Vnesheconombank together with line ministries is working on creating a Center for Exports Credit and Insurance Support on the basis of EXIAR and Roseximbank. A sort of a credit and insurance factory is being created, which will be responsible for offering financial and insurance services to Russian exporters", explained V. Dmitriev. According to the concept for creating the Center, VEB is expected to focus on supporting exports of big business and the Center being created - on supporting medium-sized and a part of large-scale enterprises.

At present, VEB is involved in introducing application software, which will allow to accelerate and optimize procedures for considering applications in one window format. This system is to be launched until the end of 2014.

The Conference's participants - representatives of line federal and regional ministries, financing institutions and business discussed the following top-priority issues: the role of the state in supporting exports,instruments (lending, mechanism for subsidizing interest rates, insurance of export credits, export guarantees), needs of business for government exports support, measures to simplify SME's entry into foreign markets.

The Russian Government appointed VEB as coordinator for providing comprehensive support for the export of Russian products, works and services. This move is designed to qualitatively improve the national industrial exports support system and make it more accessible for all categories of Russian organizations. VEB continues to expand its support for exports. For example, its portfolio of export financing has increased by 45%since the start of 2014 and amounted to about 184 billion rubles as of September 1.

The Bank's loan portfolio increased by more than 57% and its guarantee portfolioincreased by more than 46%. At present, the Bank is considering several dozens of large and medium-sized export projects, with VEB's participation share being more than 400 billion rubles. Geography of VEB's export credits include CIS countries, South-East Asia, Latin America, North and Central Africa, Central and Eastern Europe.