Business news

MINSK, 22 June (BelTA) – The very essence of the national economy should become innovative thanks to investments. Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko made the statement during the fifth Belarusian People’s Congress on 22 June, BelTA has learned.

The experience of many developed nations indicates that their economic competitive ability, the role and influence in the world economy, living standards and the quality of life of citizens directly depend on innovations and the development of “a smart economy”, pointed out the head of state. The world industry is making the transition to the next technological paradigm. “Thanks to investments the essence of the national economy should become innovative. There is a huge potential for restoring the economy’s competitive ability in that. This is why it is necessary to prioritize investments in innovations, in other words, in the creation of new science-intensive products, which will be competitive on the global market,” stressed Alexander Lukashenko.

To accomplish that, it is necessary to reshape the structure of the production sector, it is necessary to create and develop science-intensive branches, noted the Belarusian leader. The latest ratings report indicates that Belarus is in the top 10 countries with the most rapidly developing knowledge economy. In the nomination “science and technologies” Belarus is ranked 37^th among nearly 170 countries.

“It is necessary to seriously beef up the potential of the smart economy in the next five-year term,” said the head of state. It should be achieved by putting efforts into the development of high-tech manufacturing such as microelectronics, laser technologies, bio and nano technologies, precision machine tools, which should become the foundation for bolstering the country's competitive ability. Efforts will also be channeled into enabling conditions to raise innovation spending, including private investments, up to 1.5% of the GDP per annum. “It is necessary to concentrate the country’s scientific and technological potential on breakthrough scientific research and development. It is necessary to secure the practical assimilation of R&D results in manufacturing,” stressed Alexander Lukashenko.

“Scientists of the National Academy of Sciences, the administration of the Academy and other institutions face truly great and responsible tasks. It is necessary to secure the generation of new world-level knowledge in the future. Primarily in the development and creation of new-generation devices, hybrid biosensors and sensors, robots and artificial intelligence. It is necessary to more rapidly advance the branches where Belarus has made considerable R&D headway on the basis of domestic R&D products in the sphere of electronics, nanomaterials, photonics, microbiology, fine chemistry, and the production of laser sources,” noted the head of state.

At the same time conventional industries of strategic importance for the country should not be forgotten, pointed out the President. Those are, for instance, food production, agriculture, manufacturing of oil products and other things. “The high-performance innovative sector should become a powerful engine to drive the growth of basic industries — metallurgy, mechanical engineering, chemical industry, radio electronics, light industry. The enterprises will be given an impulse to renew their technologies like that and create new high-performance and well-paid jobs,” Alexander Lukashenko is convinced.