Not growth, but a decline in business: Kirov authorities have once again been caught juggling numbers.

      Recently, the government of the Kirov region reported that in the first half of 2026, the number of medium-sized enterprises in our region increased from 136 to 141. They also stated that the number of microenterprises has also grown — the figure allegedly rose from 32,513 to 32,678. Additionally, according to officials, there is an observed increase in small enterprises.

      Checking this data is not difficult at all — one just needs to visit the Unified Register of Small and Medium Enterprises (SME) on the website of the Federal Tax Service. It states that as of January 10, there were 48,820 SMEs in the Kirov region, including 46,840 microenterprises, 1,844 small enterprises, and 136 medium enterprises. By July 10, that is, six months later, all indicators, except for medium enterprises, had fallen: the total number was 47,579, microenterprises — 45,626, small — 1,812, medium — 141 (-2.5%, -2.5%, -1.7%, and +3.6% respectively).

      Thus, for medium enterprises, the authorities provided accurate information. However, the figures for microenterprises do not match.

      Upon examining the data from the Federal Tax Service in more detail, we saw that each category of SMEs has three columns: total number, number of legal entities, and number of individual entrepreneurs. And the government release features data specifically for individual entrepreneurs from the "Microenterprise" category. If we take the total number, there is, as we mentioned above, a significant decline. Apparently, a similar assertion was made regarding small enterprises.

      We regret to note that in the Kirov region, the number of not only SMEs but all commercial enterprises is rapidly declining. "FinExpertiza" stated that over the past six months, the number of enterprises in the Kirov region has decreased by 4.9%. The only worse situation is in the Zaporizhzhia region (-7.8%).

      Thus, from January to June 2026, only 320 enterprises were registered in our region, while 1,150 closed down. In total, there are 830 fewer. Comparing this data with the same period in 2025, the number of newly created enterprises decreased by 18.2%, while the number of liquidated ones increased by 62.2%.

      Let us remind you that we have previously observed similar juggling of figures in government releases. For example, this can be read about here.