Opinions & Interviews

MINSK, 31 October (BelTA) – Belarus’ Prime Minister Sergei Rumas named top ten goals for the government as he presented the government’s plan of action for 2018-2020 to the members of the House of Representatives on 31 October, BelTA has learned.

“The plan takes into account or strengthens the focus on the current government’s priority areas. These are top ten goals,” Sergei Rumas said.

This is the development of business environment and comfortable conditions for business, faster growth of the services sector, the IT country and a large-scale digitization of the economy. The plan envisages the efficient budget, finance and tax policies, consistently low inflation and effective management of state property.

The government is set to intensify the country’s foreign trade, improve the investment policy, reduce interregional differentiation, and ensure good living conditions and salaries.

The government plan envisages decriminalization of economic risks. “We maintain a constructive dialogue between the government and law enforcement agencies. We are looking into a possibility to abolish criminal prosecutions for violations in tax legislation, and also change approaches to applying tax consequences to businessmen on transactions executed using invalid primary accounting documents,” said the prime minister.

The key goal for the government is to divide the functions of the owner and the regulator in the management of organizations with the government’s share.

The plan outlines measures to promote entrepreneurship. “We need to provide business with real financial support. It is critically important for us to ensure a faster growth of private business investment based on prudent investment decisions,” said Sergei Rumas.

In 2019, a mechanism will be introduced to assess the regulatory impact of draft regulatory documents on the entrepreneurship sector. “We need to work out transparent, predictable legislation that excludes the adoption of excessive burdens and new barriers to business development. It is also important to create a legal environment that will become a guarantee of stability for the investor on our market,” the head of government said. A new law on investment will be drafted for this purpose.

In the budget and finance sector the main focus will be on the implementation of an effective system to assess fiscal risks and make decisions to minimize them. Requirements for the provision of state support will be toughened. Support will be provided only in exceptional cases and only by decision of the head of state.

The government wants to improve the management of strategic organizations. There are 3,500 of them in the country. The government sees the development of a law on the public sector with a new ideology as a key event for the near future. Plans are in place to revise approaches to the work of the institute of state representatives.

The country’s high-tech sector will continue developing along with the improvement of the competitiveness of the traditional sectors of the economy. The potential points of growth include the China-Belarus industrial park Great Stone, the High-Tech Park, and free economic zones.

The implementation of the plan should result in a competitive economy, which will allow Belarus to grow above average and develop a basis for achieving GDP of at least $100 billion by the end of 2025, Sergei Rumas said.

The House of Representatives approved the government’s plan of action.