Belarus wants to attract 80 billions US dollars of foreign investment

Vice-Prime Minister Andrey Kobiakov could already name several joint projects involving foreign capital, which have already been implemented. In the majority he referred to Russian capital:

“Today, there are over 4,200 companies with foreign capital from 68 countries of the world working in Belarus. Major investors into the Belarusian economy are Russia, the United Kingdom, Austria, Switzerland and Germany. One of the largest projects, related to the construction by the Russia-based company “Itera-group” of a business centre “Minsk-City”, is at a final stage of the negotiation process. The amount of investment is 6 billion US dollars. An agreement has been reached with a Russian financial corporation “System” in order to develop radio-space technologies, telecommunications, tourism and banking. A South African company “Lyons Financial Solutions” was selected to build the High-Technology Park in Minsk with total investment around 700 million US dollars. We also welcome the company “Heineken” which entered the Belarusian market and bought a brewery plant in Bobruisk”.

Several guests were puzzled regarding the ways Belarus was planning to change its attractiveness for investors. On one hand, the administration declares liberalization of the economy, but on the other hand, it is extremely complicated to obtain a legal status in Belarus. For instance, President of a Belgium company “Internationale Soint Industries”, Navum Fourach, stated that one should not expect mass influx of capital while the expansive bureaucratic machine still existed in Belarus. De facto, a number of different state agencies have numerous identical requirements for investors,

“My company is interested in cooperation in the area of biofuel production, i.e. in the local renewable resources. I believe one should not take into account existing stereotypes in this case. One should rather look at concrete facts and draw relevant conclusions. For our company the main issue is that Belarus is reach in resources for biofuel production and, on principle, using our ‘know-how’ and the technologies we have and use, I believe the same could be produced here. Moreover, in the Belarusian energy industry a state programme related to the development of renewable energy sources is being implemented. Perhaps, that is the main point”.