Back in January, Russia’s Ministry of Agriculture and the
state agricultural bank, Rosselkhozbank, signed an agreement on the
implementation of preferential crediting for agricultural enterprises.
Today the First Deputy Minister of Agriculture urged banks
and regions to accelerate work on concessional loans.
It appears that banks, which had been approved by the Ministry
of Agriculture to participate in the scheme, are taking a long time to consider
loan applications and are providing borrowers with an incomplete set of documents to
obtain government support.
I'm no finance expert but it sounds to me like banks are, unsurprisingly, not too keen to
participate in the Ministry plan lend money at 5% when previously they would
have commanded 20-30%.