CEO of JSC Rosseti Oleg Budargin took part in the Forum 'Small Business: Reset' held on October 30 in Moscow and organized by the All-Russian Civil Society Organization of Small and Medium Entrepreneurship 'Opora Russia'.

The Forum, opened by Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, was attended by heads of relevant ministries and agencies, representatives of the business community, banking sector, and infrastructure companies.

In his speech, Head of Rosseti Oleg Budargin presented results of the implementation of road maps developed to increase the availability of the technological connection to grids, establish favourable business climate in Russia.

He noted that Rosseti, although having existed for slightly more than a year, however, had already made serious progress by this time.

'In 2014, the cost of technological connection was reduced by 28%, the cost of one kilowatt around the country is on average 2.5 thousand Rubles. Time-limits for implementation of technological connection decreased by 67 days, on average - to 205 days. At the same time, while the number of technological connection requests increased by 15%, the responsibility of consumers became lower - 36% of requests are not fulfilled by consumers,' Oleg Budargin said.

According to him, to further resolve the issue of increasing availability of grids and their advanced development it is necessary to consolidate efforts of not only companies but also consumers and all other parties to the process. Rosseti also implements a program aimed at triggering participation in the procurement of small and medium companies, as provided by the roadmap of the Russian government.

"A great work has been also made in this direction. We have established the list of goods and services which will be procured only from SMEs. The government has set a task under which not less than 15% of procurement should be accounted for by small and medium enterprises by the end of the year. In Rosseti as of now the share of such procurement transactions amounts to more than 30%," he said. Oleg Budargin believes that the share may be higher, including in case of preferences for SMEs the status of which is often given to research and development and engineering companies. Within the existing legislation these preferences may be provided by a regulation by the government.

Speaking about the procurement process within the group of companies Rosseti in general, the CEO noted that councils controlling procurement have been established in all subsidiaries of the Company. "98% of all procurement are conducted openly. In 2014 only, we managed to spare about 45 bn roubles thanks to openness and transparency. And we have gone far from that by starting the test use of our electronic trade venue for small and medium companies, which will unite all the enterprises of the Rosseti group of companies. We have simplified processes and proposed a new technology of bidding - it is only the winner who pays. In its turn, only companies complying with small and medium business parameters may participate in them,' - Oleg Budargin said.

The head of Rosseti indicated two most important areas of development of the electrical grid complex where small and medium enterprises may participate in his opinion.

"Indeed, every first rouble that we have now in Rosseti we will channel to modernize grids and maintain existing assets. Projects aimed at reducing commercial losses are also of top priority. Today we lose dozens of billions of roubles including due to morally and physically obsolete equipment," the head of the electrical grid company noted.

Oleg Budargin also proposed an idea to develop a road map of energy service contracts together with "Opora Russia".

"We propose a specific work for small and medium companies. In conditions of tight financial saving such contracts enable to reduce the losses of electrical energy and consumption of electrical and heat energy for commercial needs." In conclusion, Oleg Budargin noted that today a lot positive things have been done within the framework of road maps because the government keeps these activities under scrutiny. He underlined that road maps were not dogmas and they may and should be improved.

In his report Deputy Minister of Economic Development highly praised the contribution of the company to support of SMEs, noting that not all companies in contrast to Rosseti willingly facilitate activities of entrepreneurs. According to him, the largest share of procurement from small companies is attributed to Rosseti which places 40-50% orders in them. At the same time a range of the other companies procure only 2-3% from small enterprises.