MINSK, 18 December– Belarus may pioneer the development of electric transport in Europe. Prime Minister of Belarus Mikhail Myasnikovich made the statement at the ceremony held on 18 December to award distinguished Belarusians.

“The government has set up a taskforce in charge of working out proposals for electric transport development in our country. In several years we are going to commission the decent electricity generating capacity of the Belarusian nuclear power plant. As you know a nuclear power plant cannot adjust its output radically and has to keep it constant. At night Belarus will have a large volume of electricity to spare. As far as electric cars and the relevant recharging stations are concerned, we can be kind of pioneers among European countries,” said the Prime Minister.

According to Mikhail Myasnikovich, the government has already formulated concrete tasks to develop this sphere. The tasks include new technologies, new jobs, the saving of conventional kinds of fuel. The development of this sphere will contribute to the development of other branches of the economy.

According to the Prime Minister, the development of a biotechnology cluster in Belarus looks as promising. “We have an advantage because we have good domestic research products that can be used to set up new enterprises. The work is in progress already. At present the annual output of biotechnology products is estimated at $500 million despite the fact that we started this five-year term virtually from zero,” he said.

A lot is being done to develop pharmaceutical industry. The production sector sometimes fails to live up to present-day requirements. In particular, Mikhail Myasnikovich mentioned the production of various biologically active additives. The Prime Minister said that if relevant interesting proposals for pharmaceutical industry development are available, including proposals from foreign investors, the government is ready to enable conditions to support these projects. There are all reasons to believe that Belarus will be able to more actively attract foreign investments in the next five-year term.

According to the Prime Minister, in the four years of the current five-year term foreign investors have poured $60 billion into the development of Belarusian enterprises or 70% more than they did during the entire previous five-year term. However, the government believes that it is insufficient. “We have all reasons for stepping up these efforts in the next five-year term,” stressed Mikhail Myasnikovich. “We are going to enable all the necessary economic, organizational, and legal conditions with this goal in mind. We are making it part of the country's development forecast till 2020 and for more distant future”.

The head of government also remarked that Belarus has recently held rather productive meetings in New York, London, and Vienna. In his words, the West, the business community, the private sector are interested in working with Belarus. “We should encourage it,” stressed Mikhail Myasnikovich. “We should implement all of that via joint projects, interesting initiatives on mutually beneficial terms”.

The Prime Minister remarked that Belarus is an open-economy country and has to comply with the status. “Yet we should not forget that national interests must be reliably protected,” he added.

Mikhail Myasnikovich also mentioned other matters regarding the operation of the Belarusian economy. In particular, he mentioned it is necessary to develop material production. Although over 400 new industrial enterprises have been created in Belarus since the beginning of the year, it is necessary to do better than that. “We have the relevant raw materials, interesting proposals from science. It is necessary to implement them by setting up new corporations that will make products that sell both on the home and foreign markets,” said the Prime Minister.The Belarus government has worked out and is ready to submit for consideration of the head of state a set of measures meant to enable favorable terms for Belarusian companies on foreign markets.  

According to the Prime Minister, at the government conference held on 18 December the head of state backed the government's proposal in favor of enabling favorable economic conditions on foreign markets before trying to enter those markets. Among other things the conditions include visa support and the availability of the relevant insurance instruments. In the near future the relevant regulatory instrument will be submitted for consideration of the head of state, said Mikhail Myasnikovich.

The adoption of the document will allow Belarusian manufacturers to operate on the markets that have been occupied by someone else already (non-traditional markets).

Mikhail Myasnikovich went on saying that Belarusian manufacturers primarily make the products, which are overabundant in the world. “We don't make unique products, therefore, it is necessary to improve our competitive ability primarily by offering top quality and, naturally, acceptable prices. It is necessary to optimize all the expenses, take care of every cent in order to secure attractive prime costs and prices both on the home and foreign markets,” said the head of government.