Republic
23.11.2007
Foreign experts have been noticing some improvements of the investment climate in Belarus, representative of the German consultative group of economic reform in Belarus Doctor Riccardo Giucci stated during a session of the working group of the 10th Minsk Forum.
“In comparison with last year there is a clear tendency in improving the investment climate in Belarus,” he said. In his words, foreign investors “are interested in Belarus and are ready to invest in the country’s economy”. The country borders on the EU which is beneficial for the development of manufacture and investments, he added.
Doctor Riccardo Giucci noted some progress in the fields of privatization in Belarus, in particular, he pointed to the recent sale of the state block of shares of the mobile operator Velcom and privatization of two banks. Belarus has received a sovereign credit rating. The Ministry of Finance has been working to attract investments from China and Japan. Yet, the country needs to continue taking measures to improve its investment climate since the level of foreign investments is still low (less than 10% of GDP). To compare: in Ukraine this figure exceeds 20% and in Poland foreign investments are over 30%.
The expert also noted that this year the country had to deal with energy carriers’ price hikes. In the long-term perspective this is considered to be beneficial for Belarus as it will help the country adapt to market conditions and accelerate reforms. Doctor Riccardo Giucci said reforms were necessary to smooth the impact of the growing prices for energy carriers. In particular, it is necessary to invest in the power engineering industry to raise the efficiency of power generation and to cut consumption of energy resources.
According to him, foreign investors are very interested in the banking sector of Belarus, consumer goods production and beer industry. “We believe that cooperation in power engineering is also promising since foreign countries have been recently focusing on energy security,” he said. The expert noted that the level of wages and salaries is still low in Belarus as compared to European countries while the personnel qualifications and education are high. In this connection foreign investors are interested in setting up companies in labour intensive spheres in Belarus.