News & Events in Belarus

Lukashenko names infrastructure development as key goal of state investment program

MINSK, 15 January (BelTA) – The main goal of the state investment program is to build and develop the country’s engineering, social, manufacturing and defense infrastructure, Belarusian President Aleksandr Lukashenko said on 15 January as he was receiving a report on the 2025 state investment program, BelTA has learned.

While making personnel decisions the day before, the head of state emphasized that he had not signed off on the state investment program and returned the draft decree to the government. “This is the most important document. I did not sign it. I returned it back to the government as usual. You send it to me again, and three or four people come to report to me. Those who prepared the program. Where's the alternative viewpoint? Are we going to build everything that is spelled out in the document? Is it worth investing in. I want a more thoughtful approach,” the head of state demanded the day before. “You should take it down a notch when it comes to the number of activities and people involved. We must focus on specific issues,” he added.

Taking part in the meeting to discuss the state investment program were senior members of the government and a number of ministries, as well as the Belarus President Administration, the Security Council, the State Control Committee, the Minsk Oblast Executive Committee and the Minsk City Executive Committee.

The president warned at the beginning of the meeting that the year 2025 will be challenging, no less challenging than 2024, for sure.

In this situation, it would be wrong to rely primarily on Russia’s market, Aleksandr Lukashenko believes. “The Russians are extremely cautious in their development forecasts: economic growth is projected within 1.5 - 2.5%, they expect double-digit interest rates, a growing budget deficit (more than RUB1.2 trillion),” the president noted.

At the same time, the Belarusian government is set to achieve GDP growth of over 4%. “Not bad,” the head of state said. There are plans to increase investments by almost 8%, which is seen as the main driver of GDP growth. Almost Br50 billion is to be utilized, which is approximately 18% of Belarus’ GDP.

“The government and the Belarus President Administration believe that the investment security threshold should be at least 20% of GDP. This is the only way to ensure economic growth going forward,” Aleksandr Lukashenko emphasized. In this regard, an important question arose: how justified is this figure?

The president noted that the structure of investments remains virtually unchanged. It includes three key areas. The lion's share is spent on projects in the real sector of the economy (approximately 60% of investments). Housing construction accounts for about 20%. The third area includes engineering, transport, and social infrastructure (about 20%). “We finance these projects within the framework of the state investment program and similar regional programs,” the president specified.

About Br6.5 billion will be needed for these purposes from all sources of financing. The state investment program features top-tier projects worth Br2.2 billion, while more than Br4 billion has been earmarked for regional projects.

“The main goal of this program is to build and expand the country’s engineering, social, production and defense infrastructure. At the same time, the program should proceed from the realities on the ground when it comes to distribution of funds,” Aleksandr Lukashenko said.

“Along with the construction of roads, schools and hospitals, we should also build modern production facilities in order to have a good and peaceful life,” the head of state said. He emphasized the need to set priorities right.

For example, as far as the construction of social facilities is concerned, new schools, hospitals, kindergartens and the like should be built only where they are really needed. Indeed, in some cases it makes more sense to use school buses to drive children to schools. “When we discussed the construction of schools and kindergartens in new neighborhoods, I said that we should consider using school buses to take children to existing educational institutions,” the president noted. In addition, many parents, especially in Minsk, can drive their children to school on their own. “If a family can afford two or three cars, why can’t they afford taking their children to a school located five kilometers away? We need to be very frugal today. It is an unpopular thing to say in the run-up to the election. But I don’t want any populism,” the head of state said.

According to the president, the same approach should be applied to road construction. “Roads are extremely important. We have already talked about it and have done a lot in this field. We are a transit country. If we no longer have good roads, people will stop coming here, traveling through Belarus. Although, it seems that today there are no other roads to or from Europe. Everything goes through Belarus. This is a blessing for us and we should not take it for granted. People travel, bring money, trade, buy goods. People are happy to buy food products, other goods, including clothes here. Enterprises will not have to spend money to transport their goods somewhere else. They are exported to other countries with high added value. Therefore, roads must be built,” Aleksandr Lukashenko said. True, not everyone in Belarus understands what it takes to maintain roads in good shape, and it is necessary to put in more effort to raise awareness on this matter. “If a family has two or three cars, naturally, they want to have good roads. However, people do not quite understand that this is not cheap and that they have to pay for it,” the head of state said.

“Considering how important this year is, we should build and commission facilities with a short payback period and with multiple benefits. These are power grids, roads, communications. Obviously, this will allow us to launch more production facilities and improve logistics. In general, a businesslike approach to the distribution of available resources is needed,” the president emphasized.

print version

make home page

add to bookmarks