OREANDA-NEWS. December 09, 2008. In 2008 Belarus will meet all socio-economic targets but for the foreign trade projections, Prime Minister of Belarus Sergei Sidorsky said at a session of the Council of Ministers, reported the Official website www.government.by.

The year 2008 was quite difficult but we are ending it on a good note. According to preliminary estimates, all main socio-economic targets will be achieved but for foreign trade. This shows that the decisions taken by the President, Government have yielded certain effect, the Prime Minister said.

Opening the session of the Council of Ministers, Sergei Sidorsky said that it is time that we started addressing the issues, which will be crucial for the economic performance of the country during the global economic crisis in 2009. They include, first of all, foreign trade, export potential, investment and innovation in the economy.

“The main goal is to assess objectively outside threats. Unfortunately, the crisis has been gathering pace affecting more and more countries. As Belarus is an export-oriented state, the crisis is affecting the real production sector, especially its basic industries. We have to define weak and strong positions of the economy to forecast the indices at the end of the year,” Sergei Sidorsky said.

According to the Prime Minister, the main thing is to preserve the real production sector; close attention should be given to optimization and reduction of expenditures.

The Belarusian economy has the potential to cut costs, Sergei Sidorsky told. According to him, the record drop in prices for oil and metal will allow Belarusian companies to cut production costs. This will also help make the prices competitive on the foreign markets and it is very important.

Sergei Sidorsky reminded about the development of the comprehensive measures to minimize the impact of the global financial crisis for the Belarusian economy. These measures have been already approved. The Belarusian Government has taken measures to support the banking system as well. It has also adopted the resolution which entitles the companies to form export prices for goods. The same document regarding the goods which are supplied onto the domestic market will be adopted soon. All these measures will allow Belarus to increase an inflow of currency revenues, the Head of Government highlighted.

Within the next two or three years Belarus can attract billions of dollars in investment, Prime Minister of Belarus Sergei Sidorsky said.

“Within the next two or three years Belarus can attract billions of dollars in investment. This is not a suggestion; these are real projects in the country,” Sergei Sidorsky said.

For that the work on liberalization and debureaucratization of the economy should be sped up especially in the part of cooperation with foreign investors. “The issues which can be tackled during 24 hours have been tabled for months in the ministries,” the Premier said.

According to Sergei Sidorsky, new objects should be deployed at weak enterprises. And it has got to be done quickly.

Speaking about the main near-term goals, the Prime Minister stressed that, first of all, Belarus needs to retain traditional sales markets and find new ones. For example, the last visit of the Belarusian delegation to China showed that there are many reserves to feel comfortable on that market.

It is necessary to continue promoting the effective economic development of the country, first of all, the agricultural industry. “We are not going to reduce agricultural output and to curtail programmes in that area in 2009,” Sergei Sidorsky said. One of the most important tasks is to continue providing support to small and medium-sized business and housing construction programmes, Sergei Sidorsky believes.

The Belarusian economy is able to handle increasing stockpiles of finished products, Prime Minister said. According to Sergei Sidorsky, an increase in stocks of finished products is due to the global financial crisis. “We can deal with it. We need to avoid confusion in addressing this issue,” the Head of Government said.

According to Sergei Sidorsky, in November the situation with the stocked integrated product exacerbated as the demand for goods fell in Ukraine, Kazakhstan and Russia. On the whole, the stocks of products exceeded the previous amount by 2% over the previous months. It shows we can deal with such issues, the Prime Minister said.

Liberalization of the Belarusian economy should be completed in 2008, Sergei Sidorsky said. “The Head of State has set forth such a task before the Government. This is an important strategic goal. We have only 20 days left to implement it. You are the participants of this programme,” he emphasized.

The Head of Government said that it is high time quick decisions were taken at all the government levels. The issues of efficient land, property utilization, paperwork liberalization are also important.

The main thing in the implementation of the strategy of the economic liberalization of the country is not only to understand but also to search for new ideas. The Prime Minister said that their practical implementation is important; the main emphasis should be placed on reforms.

With a view to supporting the real production sector and preserving the macroeconomic stability, the Government of Belarus has taken preventive measures to minimize the impact of the global financial crisis, Economy Minister Nikolai Zaichenko said at a session of the Council of Ministers.
 
According to him, these measures are aimed at shoring up the liquidity of the banks and stability of the currency market, reducing government expenses and supporting the real production sector.
The inventory of all government programmes has been underway to identify the cost optimization opportunities. Nikolai Zaichenko stressed that the approach here should be purely selective. Everything that pertains to real production, innovations and development remains intact. The things that are not that relevant, the things we can do without so far, can be reduced or postponed till better times.

To stimulate business initiative and to support small and medium-sized business, a plan of priority measures has been approved to liberalize the conditions for economic activities. Most important and urgent measures should be implemented by the start of 2009. The documents to reform the state-run management system, land and lease relations, simplify taxation and improve the supervisory activities should be passed by early 2009 too. Reforms also should be implemented in licensing, price formation and administrative procedures. All relevant enactments have been prepared and are pending adoption.

The Economy Ministry has already prepared a plan of action for further liberalization of the economy in H1 2009. The development of business, especially services sector will be boosted. Additional measures have been coined to develop paid services sector and expand the network of non-state consumer service and public catering organizations.

In order to avoid the freezing of turnover assets of the companies-exporters, the Government has decided upon returning the entry VAT before the tax payment for the imported goods to Russia is confirmed. The Government also plans to reduce the time of examining the validity of returning extra amount of VAT deductions in exports from one month till five days from the day of receipt of a relevant application.

The plan also lists such measures as provision of a zero-interest tax credit to the organisations, a partial compensation of bank interests from the budget, preferential energy tariffs for the GDP-forming energy-intensive companies. The authorized funds of the country's four major banks will be increased in order to address the aforesaid tasks and secure the financing of the real production sector.

Economy Minister has offered to set up a payment confidence system in mutual supplies in the EurAsEC. The system is aimed at dealing with the problem of overdue payments for the delivered products and supporting the export of every EurAsEC country, Nikolai Zaichenko said.
According to him, the measures taken up to stabilize the economy of Belarus at the national level are not enough for minimizing the possible consequences of the global financial crisis. The Minister believes that only the intensification and coordination of efforts in the strategic cooperation areas in the EurAsEC and, first of all, with the Russian Federation will help Belarus to minimize the possible outcomes of the crisis and reach a sustainable economic growth.

For these purposes, the EurAsEC member-states need to develop and adopt a plan of joint actions. The development of the payment confidence system in mutual supplies should be brought into the forefront of this plan of actions.