OREANDA-NEWS. January 6, 2010. No less than USD 2.7 billion of direct foreign investments should be attracted in Belarus’ economy in 2010, Prime Minister of Belarus Sergei Sidorsky said at a conference on investment activities at the Government.

In 2010 the growth of capital investments should be about 23% or 25%. “To achieve this goal Belarus should direct Br61.2 trillion of capital investments, thus providing attraction and employment of USD 5.6 billion of foreign investments that include USD 2.7 billion of direct investments,” the Prime Minister said.

Sergei Sidorsky said that these investments should help create new facilities and upgrade the existing ones, and expand the use of innovative technologies that will increase the competitiveness of the Belarusian products on the foreign markets. “To complete these tasks we have to change our approaches to the organization of the investment activities in Belarus. We should switch from the pinpoint investment attraction to the large-scale international investment cooperation with the investors, who are ready to work with Belarus,” Sergei Sidorsky said.

The Prime Minister said that Belarus had recently taken steps to enhance its investment attractiveness. “We have adopted a package of regulatory documents on the improvement of investment activities. Decree No 10 is one of these documents. Apart from that, an investment agents’ institution has been created in Belarus. The agents will also help improve the investment activities. They will work with the potential investors and facilitate the attraction of additional investments in Belarus.” The ministries and departments should wisely apply all the tools that were worked out and adopted in 2010, added Sergei Sidorsky.

In addition to the new facilities and technologies, the foreign investors will help solve the problem with Belarus’ foreign trade balance, Sergei Sidorsky said.

“We charge ourselves with a task to conduct the foreign economic activities in such a way that in a short period we will reach the foreign trade surplus,” the Prime Minister said. “We should carry out the relevant work in the ministries, concerns, departments and regions if we want to complete these ambitious tasks.”

The accomplishment of the balance will secure the implementation of the foreign trade forecasts for 2010, which were confirmed in the decree. “This is the least that we should do,” said the Prime Minister.

The investment forecasts have been made for every oblast and region. “We set a task for every company to be involved in the investment process and work actively to attract the investments,” said the Prime Minister.

Sergei Sidorsky noted that a session will analyze the work that has been made in the field of investments and what are Belarus’ prospects for 2010. “We will see if there are problems that should be considered at the governmental level. After this conference, we should make it clear what kind of investments each ministry will attract in 2010 at the cost of both internal and external sources, what projects will be implemented and what resources should be used for these purposes,” Sergei Sidorsky said.

According to the Deputy Prime Minister of Belarus Andrei Kobyakov, in 2010 capital investments are expected to increase by 23-25% as against 2009. All in all, around Br61 trillion worth of investments are expected in the Belarusian economy.

The 2010 national budget will assign Br2.15 trillion for the state investment programme, Br2.9 trillion - for housing construction, around Br3 trillion – for innovation funds.

Belarusian companies are projected to inject Br21.3 trillion of their own funds.

Banks’ loans are expected to reach Br14 trillion.

As a source of capital investments, taxpayers’ money is expected to total Br4.6 trillion. This figure is based on the fact that in 2009 the taxpayers directed Br3.7 trillion for these purposes and the increase in the real earnings is projected at 14% in 2010.

The volume of other investments is predicted to amount to Br2.3 trillion. It is, primarily, leasing. This source of capital investments is practically assured.

“What is not being calculated is the source of Br7.7 trillion of foreign investments. It is the exact volume of deficient resources that is necessary to achieve to make sure that the target to increase capital investments by 23%-25% is met,” capital investments by Andrei Kobyakov said.

He said that all the agencies and bodies assure that the tasks that had been set were feasible. Yet, the interdepartmental working groups found out that there is a real deficit of sources to implement the targets. “Only several government bodies have reported that they have enough investment projects and sources for their implementation. These are the Ministry of Construction and Architecture, the Forestry Ministry, the Trade Ministry, Bellegprom, Belgospischeprom, Bellesbumprom, and Belbiopharm concerns. The other government agencies and executive committees are not able to provide full implementation of the projects. The capital investments that were confirmed can provide the growth by 10%, and at the cost of the internal sources only,” said Andrei Kobyakov. In order to achieve the capital investment target that was set by the Belarusian President, we need to raise Br7.7 trillion or USD 2.7 billion. It can be done only by attracting foreign investments,” said Andrei Kobyakov.

He also paid a special attention to the need to use the reserve which is foreign credit lines. This is not only traditional German (€100 million) and Italian (€67 million) credit lines. “A real opportunity is Finnish tied loans for construction of heat power plants running on local fuels. In 2010 these plants can be built in the regional centers. Taking into account the cost of a heat power plant (Br95 billion), it can bring more than Br10 trillion or USD 3.5 billion of capital investments,” said Andrei Kobyakov.

“Chinese partners offer Belarus a USD 5.7 billion loan. This loan is a potential investment in the fixed capital. The relative agreement was signed in China last week,” the Vice Premier said. Preliminarily, the Chinese side has accepted 14 projects including 3 projects in the transport industry, 8 projects in the energy, 2 projects in the telecommunications and a project to construct various facilities ahead of the IIHF World Championship in 2014.

“How fast we attract these funds depends on the efficiency of the borrowers and readiness of projects. It is not sufficient to secure foreign investments. What needs to be done is to come up with options of how to show them on a company's balance sheet. Only then, we may consider them as capital investments,” Andrei Kobyakov said.

The government bodies and companies of Belarus need to step up efforts to attract more foreign investments, Deputy Prime Minister said.

The Economy Ministry is now monitoring more than 5,000 companies. Some 200 of them, or 6% of their total number, are implementing investment projects with the help of foreign investments. These are maply GDP-forming companies. Dozens and hundreds of medium-sized and small organizations are not involved in the investment process. Hence the low share of foreign investments in the aggregate capital investments. This begs the conclusion – government bodies fail to implement the decisions in the field of investments that have been recently taken in Belarus including in terms of creating an investment agent institute,” Andrei Kobyakov said.

“The government bodies and local authorities are currently preparing industrial and regional investment programmes. The government bodies need to revise their programmes to make sure that capital investments are utilized in full in 2010,” Andrei Kobyakov said. A relevant resolution should be secured in the join action plan of the government and the National Bank.

According to Andrei Kobyakov, the Belarusian Statistics Committee needs to start reviewing investment process on a monthly basis across government bodies and executive committees. “I would like to stress that there are the resources in the world. What is needed is concrete projects are needed. It is not enough to just monitor the inflow of the capital investment. We need to forecast, phase-in investment projects by month and know when and how much investments will be raised,” the Vice-Premier concluded.