12 December, Vitebsk /Diana Kurilo - BELTA/. The number of small businesses in the Vitebsk region increased by 8% in January-October 2011 compared to the same period last year, the press service of the Ministry of Taxes and Duties Inspectorate for the Vitebsk region informed BELTA. However, the number of individual entrepreneurs decreased over the year: their number reduced to 92.4% of the number registered in October 2010. Valentin Tsvetkov, Head of the Entrepreneurship and Consumer Market Development Department of the Vitebsk Regional Executive Committee, explained the process of reducing individual entrepreneurs and increasing the number of legal entities as understandable: the latter are provided with broader opportunities for doing business. In January-October 2011, small businesses paid Br587.9 billion to the consolidated budget of the Vitebsk region, including over Br123 billion in October. Receipts from legal entities amounted to Br479.7 billion, and from individual entrepreneurs - Br108.2 billion roubles. In a comparable comparison with the same period in 2010, the volume of payments from legal entities is at the level of 100.2%, while payments from individual entrepreneurs decreased to 82.4%. According to Valentin Tsvetkov, the absence of significant growth in tax revenues from small businesses does not mean their economic activity is inefficient, but rather indicates that entrepreneurs are actively using the state preferences granted to them for business development in small towns and rural areas. In January-October, tax benefits were provided to over 100 economic entities in the region. Among the districts of the region, the largest share of small business payments in the total tax revenues is observed in the Vitebsk district (almost 56%), Shumilino district (over 47%), and Tolochin district (about 41%). At the same time, the contribution of individual entrepreneurs to the total receipts is quite high in Lepel district (9.8%), Orsha (9.1%), Glubokoe district (8.7%), and Pervomaisky district of Vitebsk (8.8%). On average across the region, the share of entrepreneurs in the volume of budget payments controlled by the tax service was about 2.5%.