Business news

MINSK, 15 August (BelTA) – EY Company has released a report titled as The IT Industry in Belarus: 2017 and Beyond, BelTA has learned. The report evaluates the current state and growth prospects of the Belarusian information technology industry.

The report contains 120 pages in English and presents detailed information about Belarus, its IT industry, and the Hi-Tech Park. The report also analyzes the education system and the labor market, domestic business operation terms, and the infrastructure in Belarus. As a rule, potential investors, large international corporations, and companies that seek partners in Belarus require such information.

In addition to presenting as much statistics and analytical information about the Belarusian IT industry as possible the report sketches out two possible development scenarios for the IT industry — current conditions and accelerated development. If additional incentives are authorized — primarily those intended to encourage IT education and improve business operation terms — earnings of the companies residing in Belarus’ Hi-Tech Park may rise by 60% by 2020.

According to Pavel Lashchenko, EY Company’s Managing Partner for Belarus, presenting the country’s rapidly developing IT industry before the international community was one of the goals of the report. Apart from that, EY experts analyzed what steps the government may take to convert Belarus into an IT country. EY experts believe that further rapid growth of the Belarusian IT industry necessitates a remodeling of the national education system with a focus on training technical specialists such as engineers, mathematicians, and physicists.

Alexander Martinkevich, Deputy Director of the Hi-Tech Park administration, noted that the EY report will help better present capabilities of the Belarusian IT industry abroad. It is important for the Hi-Tech Park as an export-oriented cluster. According to Alexander Martinkevich, in H1 2017 export by companies residing in the park increased by 25% from the same period of last year to $444 million. The resident companies penetrated new markets such as Japan, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar. Export to Singapore increased by ten times, with export to Denmark and Netherlands up by five times and 2.5 times respectively.

The Hi-Tech Park is busy working to enable conditions that will attract large international corporations and venture capital funds to Belarus. Work is in progress to further improve the regulations governing the operation of the Hi-Tech Park. “The world knows our country but not well enough. While Belarus is positioned as one of the largest IT clusters in Europe, there is room for improvement on the global market. Promoting the Belarusian IT industry abroad, presenting the potential of our companies, and opportunities to invest in information technologies represent some of the most important tasks,” believes Alexander Martinkevich.

The report The IT Industry in Belarus: 2017 and Beyond is the first publication of this scale to present detailed statistics and analytical information about Belarusian IT companies, the education system, the labor market, business operation terms, and many other things. The report also takes a look at the main players of the IT industry, development centers of international companies in Belarus, significant events and deals, the country’s rating and ratings of IT companies in international rankings. Work on the report began in autumn 2016. The report was released to the general public via the EY website on 15 August.

EY Company is an internationally recognized leader in the area of auditing, taxation, transaction and advisory services. The company has been working in the CIS since 1989. The EY company has been represented in Belarus since 1994 and is the largest international company to provide professional business services.