Translated material
20 years on the market
Small businesses in Moscow celebrate their anniversary on a grand scale
Moscow small businesses will receive special attention from the city authorities this year. 2007 will be an anniversary year for the large army of small entrepreneurs in the capital. The history of small business in Moscow begins with the creation of a commission of the Moscow City Executive Committee on issues of individual labor and cooperative activities under the leadership of the then mayor of the city, Yuri Luzhkov. This happened exactly twenty years ago, back in 1987.Then the first entrepreneurs, who bore the now forgotten name “cooperators,” faced enormous difficulties in their work, ranging from a lack of experience to elementary gangster raids. The working group under the Moscow City Executive Committee commission did a great job supporting those who wanted to open their own business. But it is unlikely that at the beginning of the journey, even in their wildest dreams, anyone could have imagined that in 20 years there would be 208 thousand small enterprises and about 100 thousand individual entrepreneurs operating in the capital, and the number of people employed in small businesses would exceed 2 million people. And especially since two decades later they will receive certificates and gratitude for their work from the hands of Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov. The anniversary year for the capital's small businesses began with a gala evening, which took place last Friday in the Manege exhibition hall.
In many ways, such high figures for the number of small businesses were achieved thanks to the coordinated actions of the Moscow government, the department for support and development of small businesses and the public expert council on small businesses under the mayor and government of Moscow. There is no such system for supporting and developing small businesses as in Moscow anywhere else in Russia. And this year, special attention will be focused on small businesses.
The book “20 years of small business in Moscow” will be presented in the near future. During the year, the exhibition “Information Technologies in Medicine” will be held; exhibition “Entrepreneurship in the Housing and Public Utilities Sphere”; the third Moscow exhibition of healthy leisure "Fitness-Moscow"; third Moscow crafts festival; the second Moscow forum of young entrepreneurs; conference “Technologies of interregional and international business cooperation. System of interregional marketing centers - 10 years later"; sixth international conference “Entrepreneurship in Industry: Paths of Development”; the seventh international exhibition-fair “Golden Hands of Masters”; interregional scientific and practical conference “Results and prospects for the development of small business in the Russian Federation. 1987-2007".
As part of the celebration of the 20th anniversary of the capital's entrepreneurship, it is planned to hold an exhibition and conference “Services for small businesses in Moscow. Training, consulting, informational, legal, marketing, credit and financial support” with round tables, seminars, business meetings and presentations.
The charity event “Moscow Small Business for Veterans of the Great Patriotic War and Labor” will be timed to coincide with Victory Day. At the end of April, the award ceremony for the winners of the annual citywide competition “Moscow Entrepreneur 2006” will take place. And in May the annual Moscow Small Business Days will be held.