Systemically important organizations in the competition for government support

The paper covers the analysis of the status of systemically important organizations and the review of government support measures in comparison with international experience. The principles of differentiating various groups of organizations are specific for each country; typically, scale criterion and industry criterion are used. Such selection becomes the most relevant in the crisis periods, when the immediate economy support measures are required. The identification of backbone organizations has been used in domestic practice since 2008, and in 2020, it was consolidated and expanded, the number of organizations increased at the national and regional levels. Moreover, the author notes the shift in the approach to the backbone organizations’ classification: the broadening of a “systemically important” status, the selection complexity, and the transition to the industry-based approach. Funded bank credits are of special interest among the government support measures. The crediting mechanism involves both a borrower and a creditor and ministries and a government agent. The author specifies the risks of this supporting measure related to possible availability limitation for other groups of organizations. Bankruptcy moratorium limitation is also specified as a competitive environment counterfactor. Medium-scale enterprises became the direct competitors to the backbone organizations in obtaining supporting measures. The author concludes that the systemically important status ensures the preference when obtaining government support as a priority. Moreover, the study identified the absence of demand for some measures from the backbone organizations. Alongside, risks for the organizations included in this group occur. Additional requirements for the analysis of economic and financial activities and monitoring are imposed. There are risks of being on the sanction lists, which may limit the circle of organization’s potential counterparts. The author proposes changing the approach to grouping organizations for government support specifying the industry-based priority, which will ensure greater transparency and objectivity when providing government support measures. The groundwork for the support tools improvement is associated with the possibility of restructuring the allowable loans.