Opinions & Interviews

PM: There should be no underperforming regions in Belarus by 2025 year-end

MINSK, 6 October (BelTA) - There should be no underperforming regions in Belarus by the end of 2025, Prime Minister Roman Golovchenko said at a meeting of the Presidium of the Council of Ministers to review the draft program of social and economic development of Belarus for 2021-2025, BelTA learned.

“The head of state has repeatedly stated that a thoughtful regional policy should be a priority for the government. There should be no underperforming regions by the end of the five-year period. All possible tools must be used to achieve this goal,” Roman Golovchenko noted.

The services sector should become one of the points of growth in the next five years. However, according to the prime minister, the draft program does not highlight the segment of consumer services, does not spell out the targets regarding the development of business, financial, and other services for business.

The tasks for the next  five years also include efficient replacement of imports. "We should address this problem not by establishing barriers or giving unreasonable preferences to domestic producers, but primarily by organizing our own manufactures of high-tech and highly competitive goods," the head of government said.

Roman Golovchenko also wants the program to spell out specific tools to improve the quality of state governance in 2021-2025.

The primary purpose of the program should be the creation of conditions to improve people’s welfare. “The work of the whole state apparatus should be focused on people’s interests,” the prime minister stressed.

The program should target new economic sectors that will be developing within the next five years, the prime minister said. “As part of the ongoing five-year plan, three new sectors have been successfully developing in the country. These are IT, space industry and nuclear power. The next five-year plan needs to envisage both the further development of these sectors and the emergence of new ones,” he said.

The government also expects new ideas from scientists. The scientific community should be a full-fledged co-author of the program, the prime minister said.

Roman Golovchenko urged to apply an integrated approach in the preparation of the program. “If we are talking about the development of, for example, the power industry, then the draft plan should reflect an integral chain of all the elements: from the Belarusian nuclear power plant to the disposal of batteries. The document should be holistic, with all the elements   interconnected,” the head of government said.

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