Addressing an international symposium on small and medium-sized businesses, held on the upper parliamentary chamber's premises Thursday, Ms. Nikkonen attributed the recent upgrading of the rating to the government's effective efforts to develop the venture capital infrastructure. Among other things, the government has set up a venture capital fair and an early-stage venture capital fund, to support private funds. And it has also established enterprise centers to provide training, information, and legal counseling for venture capitalists.
On the other hand, Ms. Nikkonen lamented that venture capital investment was developing unevenly across the regions. Central and northwestern Russian provinces figure prominently on the Russian Venture Capital Fair while the share of all others is negligible. She called for "breakthrough steps" in this area. One such step could be to increase the government-owned venture capital fund's contribution to private funds to 50 percent, up from the current 10%.
Ms. Nikkonen also stressed the need to grant a three-year repeal of the tax on dividends to small startup companies.
