OREANDA-NEWS. February 20, 2012. Belarus’ agriculture ministry has been challenged to draw around USD 100 million in direct foreign investments in 2012, Nadezhda Kotkovets, first deputy chief of the Ministry of Agriculture and Foodstuffs, told a news conference in Minsk.

“I think we will make if we find foreign companies interested in fish production. The project has an investment appeal. We are currently holding negotiations,” the vice minister said.

Foreign investors are more interested in pouring capital into reprocessing industries, Kotkovets said.

“However, we are not quite interested in investment proposals like that. You know how well-equipped our dairy enterprises are. Now it is hardly possible to find a dairy factory in Belarus, which would need retooling,” Kotkovets said.

Belarus’ agricultural sector is ready to embrace foreign investors, the vice minister said. There has been a lot of negotiations lately, she said. The latest foreign investment projects in Belarus are a sheep farm in Logoisk (an Iranian project) and a poultry factory in Dzerzhinsk (Israeli investments).