Business news

31 Jul 2020

Minister: Belarus offers attractive conditions for investment

Aleksandr Chervyakov. An archive photo

MINSK, 31 July (BelTA) – Belarus offers attractive conditions for investing in various sectors, Belarus’ Economy Minister Aleksandr Chervyakov said during the international investment video conference "From Recovery to Sustainable Growth", BelTA has learned.

“Attraction of investments is traditionally one of the priorities of the country’s social and economic development. Today Belarus offers attractive conditions for investment in a variety of industries, including at the legislative level. There are preferential regimes depending on projects. These are the Hi-Tech Park, the Chinese-Belarusian industrial park Great Stone, free economic zones, and the Bremino-Orsha special economic zone,” Aleksandr Chervyakov said.

Given the high competition for investment worldwide, Belarus continues to improve its national investment legislation. “This includes efforts to simplify conditions for investors to enter the Belarusian market, reduce costs during the implementation of projects, minimize risks and increase protection of property rights. For example, we plan to introduce a mechanism of special investment agreements providing for the guarantee of a certain part of the product's redemption. We seek to create the most comfortable conditions for doing business in Belarus among the EAEU countries,” the economy minister said. Work is underway to conclude new bilateral agreements with Singapore, Turkey and China with the main emphasis on investment protection.

“The measures taken by the government will help keep the economy at the level of 2019 this year. Despite the problems with the arrival of foreign specialists, the supply of equipment from abroad, funding, the investment activity in Belarus remains at the level of the previous year. Even under these conditions, large investment projects with foreign capital are implemented in line with the schedule,” Aleksandr Chervyakov said.

In his words, the overriding goal for Belarus today is to use more effectively the potential of domestic resources, mainly through regional development and fostering of entrepreneurship. “We focus on the targeted search for investors taking into account the individual features, specialization and competitive advantages of each region. Each territory develops its own investment portfolio of projects and proposals. This will help not only avoid unnecessary internal competition, but also better unlock the potential of the region. These proposals are available on the interactive portal Investor Roadmap,” the minister said.

The country plans to introduce differentiated measures of state support for certain categories of areas taking into account the current level of their development and goals for the near future. By the end of the year, plans are in place to offer investors and businesses new opportunities to implement projects for accelerated development of the areas with a population of over 80,000 people. “First of all, we aim to support high-tech innovative industries in those sectors where we have competencies and potential, achievements in engineering, personnel training system, experience of design offices. We are interested in investing in traditional sectors to improve the quality and competitiveness of our products,” Aleksandr Chervyakov said.

He identified priority sectors to attract investment in the country within the next five years. These include biotechnology, pharmaceuticals, optics and electronics, electric transport, and medical equipment. Belarus is also interested in investing in the development of the infrastructure of scientific, technological and innovation activities, the digitalization of the economy, including the full-scale deployment of the 5G network, and the implementation of the smart city concept.