Business news

MINSK, 11 May (BelTA) – The volume of investments channeled into the China-Belarus industrial park Great Stone may reach $2 billion by 2020, BelTA learned from Belarusian Deputy Economy Minister Pavel Utyupin during the celebration of China-Belarus Industrial Park Day.

The official talked about the park’s plans to raise $1 billion in investments by 2020. “The volume of investments declared by the companies currently residing in the China-Belarus industrial park Great Stone is close to $1 billion. Respectively, the arrival of new companies will only increase the figure. I think we may talk about the volume of declared investments as large as $2 billion by 2020,” he said.

The Belarusian deputy economy minister reminded that the conditions Belarus is ready to offer to resident companies in the industrial park were improved last year. “The latest amendments to the presidential decree were passed in May 2017. Operation conditions in the park were essentially changed then. We can see the results: we now have 34 resident companies, including 11 ones registered in 2018,” he specified.

Yet, according to Pavel Utyupin, there is no need to keep changing the legislation for now. “Stable legislation is what matters. Our partners confirm it, too. Besides, we worked out the last year’s document together with our Chinese partners and tried to take into account not only international practices but also practices of Belarusian and Chinese companies. The most comfortable conditions were enabled by that piece of legislation. It seems to me there is no need for any amendments at present,” noted the official.

The Belarusian deputy economy minister said that resident companies can develop their enterprises in the park in two ways: they can rent manufacturing premises or build their own. “Virtually two days ago we gave the residency certificate to a Chinese company, which is part of the Chinese corporation CITIC Group. It will make specialized robots, for instance, robots for extinguishing fires. CITIC Group also has the technology for creating underwater robots, robots for examining pipes. This company rents its premises. On the other hand, there are companies, which build their manufacturing premises with an option to buy out the land plot. The process takes more time. Some companies are in this stage now and will get down to construction soon,” explained Pavel Utyupin.

The official pointed out the China-Belarus industrial park Great Stone develops at a good pace. “Certainly, I would like it to develop even faster but without losing the quality of projects. Our Chinese partners have been to a number of parks in Central Asia and concluded that the other parks needed much more time to secure the results the Great Stone park has. Once this year is over, I am confident we will have even more significant results,” said the Belarusian deputy economy minister.

Plaques of eleven new resident companies were solemnly unveiled as part of the celebration of China-Belarus Industrial Park Day. Apart from that, awards were bestowed upon the first three companies to commission their manufacturing enterprises. Those are the Chinese-Belarusian trade and logistics subpark, OOO CETC China Electronic Technology, and OOO Levanta Group.