Business news

MINSK, 13 February (BelTA) – President of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) Suma Chakrabarti will visit Belarus for the first time, BelTA learned from the EBRD office in Belarus.

As part of the visit on 17-18 February the EBRD president will meet with a number of officials. Apart from that, Suma Chakrabarti is expected to visit the Swiss-Belarusian company producing electric transport Stadler Minsk in Fanipol, Minsk Oblast. The EBRD takes part in the financing of this project.

The EBRD’s activities in Belarus are determined by the country strategy of the bank which was passed in March 2013 and is aimed at the development of private business. In the past three years the EBRD’s investments to the projects’ portfolio in the country increased almost four times.

The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development was established in 1991. It is the largest investor in the region and raises a lot of foreign investments. Investments of the EBRD help facilitate structural and industry-specialized reforms, promote competition, privatization, and entrepreneurship, strengthen financial organizations and legal systems, develop the necessary infrastructure for supporting the private sector, introduce a reliable system of corporate management, including for the resolution of environmental issues.

Belarus became a member of the EBRD in 1992. The cooperation was increasingly vibrant in recent years.