OREANDA-NEWS. March 3, 2009. Budgets of small and medium-sized towns should be increased due to more active infrastructure development, said Prime Minister of Belarus Sergei Sidorsky at a session of the Presidium of the Council of Ministers to revise the progress in the implementation of the national comprehensive development programme for regions, small and medium-sized urban settlements for 2007-2010 on March 3.

This programme emphasizes transition from getting donations from local and central government to self-financing, Sergei Sidorsky said. He explained that it should be done through the development of urban infrastructure.

Overall, in his words, the implementation of this programme resulted in some positive developments. The socio-economic development of these towns has considerably improved, new enterprises and new jobs are being created, people get their salaries regularly.

‘It is a good result. We are interested in the inflow of people in small and medium-sized towns. Apart from that, a set of decisions was taken to develop agrotowns; the state is interested in developing processing industry and industrial infrastructure here to create new jobs,’ the Prime Minister noted.

At the same time Sergei Sidorsky expressed a certain dissatisfaction with the course of implementation of the programme in 2008. More than 30% of the regions failed to meet the consumer goods production target, and 24% of the regions did not reach the industrial output target.

'The President and the government did everything possible to help companies in these towns work efficiently. The programme has been underway for two years already. Indeed, we have got many good results. However, there are some regions which we expect to develop more efficiently. We want every region to be sufficient. Therefore we need to look into what decisions we need to take so that all targets would be met, so that the consumer market and business would develop in small and medium-sized towns,' Sergei Sidorsky said.

According to him, for the local authorities to be more effective, quantitative indicators in terms of the growth of small and medium-sized business will be adopted. 'There is a need to raise the awareness about small business advantages among businessmen and citizens in small and medium-sized towns,' the Premier said.

Bank reserves are sufficient for implementing all regional investment projects. 'If there is a lack of resources, please address the government. We will find the funds as this is not big money,” Sergei Sidorsky said.

The Prime Minister instructed the local authorities to consider the issues related to the programme, to analyze the work in every region and town. There are no grounds to wind down the programme even though there is the global financial crisis, Sergei Sidorsky said.