OREANDA-NEWS. On 26 March 2009 was announced, that Belarusian agro-stations must become self-sufficient economic entities by developing their own production facilities, Prime Minister Sergei Sidorsky said during a Council of Ministers session that address the agro-station program for 2005-2008.

“The government wants agro-stations to become self-sufficient, as they need not only the infrastructure, but also productions and processing facilities,” Sidorsky said.

“If we create productions, processing units, maintenance services, we will have concrete results,” Sidorsky said.

According to Agriculture Minster Semyon Shapiro, of Belarus’ 937 agro-stations, created in 2005-2008, only 200 have maintenance services.

Over the past four years, Belarus spent 69 trillion Belarusian rubles (Br) on the village restoration program, 16.5 trillion rubles above the original forecast.

In 2009, 251 new agro-stations will appear in Belarus, requiring 682 billion rubles.

As of today, the country is short of 192 billion rubles to refit grain-drying facilities and maintenance services, the minister said. The social infrastructure of agro-stations requires another 609.3 billion rubles in 2009, which brings the total up to 900 billion rubles.

Shapiro suggested that the Finance Ministry and region administrations keep the originally planned volume of financing unchanged.