Chechnya: over 12,000 entrepreneurs stopped their businesses within last three months

More than 12,000 entrepreneurs of Chechnya stopped operation, claiming a sharp increase in insurance premiums as the main reason.

"I had a small service station in Grozny, and I paid all the due taxes, utility bills, wages to my employees and everything else, not to mention the regular "royalties" to numerous inspectors. Now, I see no sense to continue my business," Rizvan U., a resident of Chechnya, told the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent.

"They don't allow breathing to our entrepreneurs: they are checked with and without reasons, searched, audited and all the rest," said Aslanbek, a resident of the Republic, who was engaged in private medical practice in Grozny.

"With my income remaining the same, they demand to pay double insurance premiums. This is a serious blow to the entire system of private enterprise," he said.

A representative of the regional branch of the All-Russian Public Organization of Small and Medium Businesses "Opora Rossii" (Support of Russia) has treated the introduction of new rules for payment of insurance premiums as "a catastrophe for individual entrepreneurs."

According to the republic's department of the Federal Tax Service of Russia, in 2012 Chechnya had more than 45,000 entrepreneurs and about 9900 small business enterprises.