STEPAN ZEMTSOV: “DURING TROUBLED PERIODS, BUSINESSES TAKE MORE LOANS – simply in order to survive”
Stepan Zemtsov, senior researcher at the Gaidar Institute’s Innovation Economics Department, told RBC Ufa that during crises one can always observe a surge in business loans. This was his reaction to the news that with the introduction of soft loans for businesses, companies operating in Bashkiria got RUB 5.7bn from banks.
“Naturally, one of the contributing factors was the federal program of subsidizing interest rates, including through the SME Corporation. Otherwise, no one would be able to take loans. Quite recently, the RF Central Bank’s rate was prohibitive. Besides, this is the response to the crisis. It is during difficult economic periods that companies take more loans simply in order to survive, to keep their businesses going. I am afraid that by no means all of these numerous loans will be spent on expansion and development. Many took loans merely because they had run out of money. This is also evidenced by the increasing number of loans issued, which means that more companies have gone to banks,” said Stepan Zemtsov.
According to the expert, a peak in lending is usually followed by a decline, as it happened after August-September 2020, against the backdrop of the coronavirus crisis. By way of summing up, he said that so far, it was still difficult to predict whether lending would continue to rise, because it was not clear that its peak had actually been reached.
According to the expert, a peak in lending is usually followed by a decline, as it happened after August-September 2020, against the backdrop of the coronavirus crisis. By way of summing up, he said that so far, it was still difficult to predict whether lending would continue to rise, because it was not clear that its peak had actually been reached.