Opinions & Interviews

MINSK, 20 November (BelTA) - All the draft laws of the Standing Committee on Economic Policy of the House of Representatives are aimed at improving the investment climate in Belarus, Chairman of the commission Vladislav Shchepov said in an interview with BelRos television channel, BelTA informs.

“The draft laws that are under consideration in our commission are all related to investment. We consider laws, law enforcement practices, property rights protection, and judicial practice. It is impossible for one law to change the investment climate. Such issues need to be addressed with a holistic approach,” the MP said.

According to him, it often happens that as a result of a minor violation of the law a businessman can lose the object of his labor, for example, a car. Vladislav Shchepov noted that there are formal criteria that need to be adjusted. For example, today one can be severely punished for an error in documents, which in some cases may not correspond to the harm inflicted by an economic entity. “Most often, businessmen do not pose any danger to society. To deprive them of their freedom is costly for the state. Business is destroyed, fewer taxes are paid and jobs are lost,” he added. This approach will be altered. A draft law has already been submitted to the House of Representatives to introduce amendments and additions to the Code of Administrative Offenses, and also to the Criminal Code. These two draft laws will be aimed at decriminalizing economic activity, the chairman of the commission stressed.

According to the MP, now business is encouraged to contribute to the preparation of legal acts, speak up, evaluate the activity of public administration bodies. The public discussion of draft legal acts will contribute to these objectives. “Any citizen, businessman or public organization may declare that a particular document violates their interests and demand change and forward the proposal to the legislative body or to the agency that is in charge of this draft and get feedback,” Vladislav Shchepov said.

Belarus will also introduce the institute, which already operates in Russia, namely the institute of the regulatory impact assessment, he continued. “This means that when adopting normative legal act we will need to assess the positive and negative sides, to determine whether there will be the positive effect of a law or a regulation, and to find the ways to formulate a document in such a way so that it should produce the greatest positive effect,” the MP said.