Transcript Belarus

Belarus in Brief
Territory - 207 600 sq. km (ranked 86 in the world)
Population – 9.67 million (ranked 79 in the world)
Workforce – 4.5 million
Literacy - 99.6%
Capital – Minsk (1.81million)
Regional centres: Gomel (480 000), Mogilev (390
000), Vitebsk (360 000), Grodno (320 000), Brest
(300 000)
•Natural resources: More than 4,000 deposits
and fields of mineral resources, agricultural lands
cover more than 43.9 percent of the territory,
forests cover 37.6 percent of the territory, over
20,800 rivers and about 11,000 lakes, mineral
waters
Total GDP - US$ 59.9 billion
Real GDP growth rate – 10%;
GDP per capita ($) - 6192
Inflation rate – 14.8%
Exports – US$ 34.1 billion
Imports – US$ 40 billion
FDI inflow (2007, % of GDP) - 3.96
Gross Foreign Debt (% of GDP) - 28.4
Moody’s Rating - B1
State languages – Belarusian and Russian
Belarus – an attractive and profitable
place to invest: market advantages
Advantageous geographical location and a well developed transport infrastructure:
Eastern boundary of the European Union; a well developed system of highways and
railways; two corridors of trans-European transport network - a direct way to Berlin (1060
km), Warsaw (550 km), Moscow (700 km), Vilnius (215 km) and Kiev (580 km); seven
airports.
Highly skilled manpower which has accumulated experience of work at modern
enterprises. Belarus is recognised by UN experts as a country with the best human
development index among CIS countries.
46 % of labour force of the country has higher and specialised secondary education.
Highly developed industrial, scientific, technical potential. 30 percent of world outputs
of heavy haulers, 15 percent of mineral fertilizers, 6 percent of tractors; export of goods to
more than 140 countries; well developed mobile telephone communication, high-speed
Internet; 56 higher education institutes, 204 institutions of specialised secondary
education; research and development potential.
Invest Belarus – smart thinking
Belarus' major investors 2002-2008
Political, social and economical stability
Stable internal political situation, low crime
and corruption rate, absence of international or
religious conflicts
Others; 14%
Russia; 23%
Netherlands; 3%
Favorable investment climate
Switzerland 17%
– Well developed investment legislation
– Favorable investment
foreign investor
Great Britain;
19%
Austria 9%
conditions
to
– Guaranteed
right
of
unimpeded
transfer
of
profit received from
investments in the country
– Availability of international agreements
regarding the avoidance of double
taxation (concluded with 52 countries)
– Belarus entered the list of ten countriesregulatory reforms (according to Doing
Business 2009, the sixth annual report
published by the World Bank and IFC)
Germany; 8%
Cyprus; 6%
Multi-stakeholder Partnership Projects,
brokered by UNDP:
Telemedicine development project
The overall objective: Improve public access to quality
medical services in remote communities through
development of telemedicine.
Immediate project objective: Better medical services
related to cardiology through the development of
ECG telesystems in small towns and rural centres.
Partners: Mobile TeleSystems, UNDP, Ministry of
Health, Belarusian Centre for Medical Technologies.
The role of UNDP:
-
the idea of the project was proposed
foreign experience on telemedicine was introduced
dialogue between potential partners has been
organized
advocacy and publicity for the project is provided
Project “Support for Establishing a Guarantee
Fund in the Republic of Belarus”
Main objective of the project: to support the creation of a guarantee fund in
Belarus by establishing a partnership among respective government institutions,
commercial banks, international donor agencies and Belarusian small and mediumsized business, as well as elaboration of a guarantee fund investment proposal to
attract domestic and international investments to the guarantee capital
Partners: Belarusian Union of Entrepreneurs and Employers; Belgazprombank;
Department of Entrepreneurship of the Ministry of Economy.
Role of UNDP:
• a long-term partnership among prospective founders of a guarantee fund through
organizing a corresponding working group was established
• the GF international expert mission in Minsk was arranged and meetings with
potential partners (commercial banks, government) and other agencies were
organized
• investment proposal “Minsk Guarantee сompany for Small and Medium
Enterprises” was prepared and posted on web site:
http://www.export.by/en/?act=s_docs&mode=view&id=1514&doc=66
•work at involving investors and the international organizations concerned to
become founders of the Guarantee Fund is in progress.
Agriculture
Key highlights
 At present Belarus is a leading agricultural
producer in the CIS countries.
 Belarus is fully self-sufficient in agricultural
production: domestic agricultural products
manufacturing almost fully meets internal
demand.
 In 2008 gross agricultural output in Belarus
reached 5.8 bln. EUR, which is by 4.4% more in
real terms compared to 2007 and made 8,4% of
the GDP
Dynamics of agricultural output in Belarus (official estimations), bln. euro
7,0
0,15
+12,6%
6,0
0,1
+6,0%
+6,6%
+4,4%
+1,7%
5,0
+1,8%
4,0
0,05
5,3
+0,7%
5,8
4,7
0
3,9
3,0
-0,05
2,7
2,8
2,9
2,0
-0,1
1,0
-0,15
0,0
-0,2
2002
2003
2004
2005
Agricultural output in Belarus, bln.euro
2006
2007
2008
Real growth rate,%
 In 2007 total livestock of cattle in the Republic amounted to 4.01 mln. heads, including
1.5 mln. heads of mother cows.
 Belarus is a leading producer of potatoes. Per capita production of potatoes in 2007
amounted to 900 kilos;
Projects
1. Construction of an oil crops processing and mill-cakes and oil manufacturing units and of
mill-cakes and oil at Slutsk Grain Products Plant OJSC (Investments – 6,5 mln. EUR)
2. Complex for cleaning crop seeds (cereals – 10 000 tons, perennial grasses – 10 000 tons,
vegetables – 200 tons) (Investments – 3 mln.EUR)
3. Construction of dairy farms in Vitebsk region
Construction
Key highlights
 There were 5.1 mln sq. m of housing built in the
Republic of Belarus in 2008, which is by 9.3%
more than in 2007.
 It is planned that capital investments into the
construction industry development will amount to
845 million EUR in 2006-2010. In 2007 229.8
million EUR were invested into the industry’s
development.
 The Belarusian commercial estate market is one
of the fastest growing segments of the
economy.
 Building materials market capacity was growing in
2003-2008 by 12.5% per annum and made 4.1%
of the aggregated Belarusian industrial production.
Projects
1. Technical modernization of the drawing shop and the wire and cable manufacturing shop at
JSC «Shchuchin plant «Autoprovod» (Investments – 1,95 mln. EUR)
2. Foundation of a modern plant producing high quality building materials on the basis of a
magnesia astringent for a low rise-houses construction (Investments – 7,7 mln.EUR)
3. Transformation of the «Agros» company to the «Plastbau» factory producing building
designs under the license of «Plastedil International Ltd» (Investments - 4,6 mln.EUR)
4. Production of thermal insulating materials using short flax-fiber at the free production spaces
of the unitary enterprise «Groniteks» (Investments - 4,7 mln.EUR)
Food
Key highlights
 Belarusian food industry production in 2008 was about 5.45 bln. EUR and demonstrated a
stable growth about 8,7%.
 The main sectors of the Belarusian food industry are the following: diary, meat,
confectionery, soft drinks, alcohol, fruit and vegetables processing.
 Belarusian meat and meat products market is a growing, non-mature and highly
fragmented market. In 2007 market size reached 1.7 bln.EUR.
 The Republic of Belarus is a fully self-sufficient country in terms of milk and milk
products production. In 2007 the aggregated Belarusian whole milk products, cheese
and butter market size 1.45 bln.EUR.
 There are 21 confectionery producers in the Republic of Belarus. In 2007 total
production of confectionery in Belarus reached 127.2 thous.tonnes.
 The Belarusian beer market in 2008 was estimated at 300-400 mln.EUR or 47.2
mln.decalitres, which is by 5% higher than in 2007.
 In 2008 the aggregated size of the Belarusian soft drinks market reached 292 mln.EUR,
which is by 27% more than in 2007.
Projects
1. Reconstruction of the confectionary production capacities at JSC “Krasnyi
Mozyrianin”(Investments – 7,0 mln.EUR
2. Reconstruction of a citric acid production at JSC “Skidel Sugar Refinery” (Direct
investments - 4,6 mln.EUR) . The project purpose was a citric acid production capacities
reconstruction with a new resource-saving technologies introduction, which will increase
modern capacities by 2 000 metric tons.
Tourism
Key highlights
More than 120 thous tourists visited Belarus in 2008.
1,4 mln. transit tourists visited Belarus
In Belarus there are 282 hotels (21 of them are certified
by stars 3-5*).
More than 500 tourist operators work in Belarus
Two architectural monuments are inscribed on
UNESCO's list of the World Heritage:
– The Castle Complex ”Mir“ in the village of Mir
(Grodno region)
– The Palace and Park Ensemble in the town of
Nyasvizh (Minsk region)
Project
Tourist complex «The Star of the East»
(Investments – 4,5 mln.EUR)
The objective of the present project is to
construct a tourist complex including: -3*
hotel; -10 wooden houses; -entertainment
facilities (restaurant, indoor water park,
bowling, casino, billiard, tennis courts
sauna, spa, mud bath facility, skiing hill
with a cable railway).
Environment
Key highlights
Belarus is also often called the land of lakes (there
are 20,000 of lakes) .
There are 4 national parks (Belovezhskaya
Pushcha is of international importance); 97
natural reserves, with 7 of them being of
international importance.
The forests cover the 1/3 of the territory of the
country.
8% of the Belarusian territory is covered by bogs
(1,7 mln.hectares). Now in Bealrus the project of
UNDP/GEF “Renaturalization and Sustainable
Management of Peatlands in Belarus to Combat
Land Degradation, Ensure Conservation of Globally
Valuable Biodiversity, and Mitigate Climate Change”
is under effectuation.
Projects
1. Foundation of modern dolomite recycling plants and production magnesia cement, lime and
astringent gypsum materials using energy-saving technology (Investments – 23,0 mln.EUR)
2. Paper single-use utensils production organization (Investments - 1,2 mln.EUR)
3. Organization of the Modern System for Separate Collection and Processing of Solid
Domestic Waste (Investments - 3,9 mln.EUR)
4. Expansion of manufacture of wood fuel granules (pellets) (Investments – 1,6 mln.EUR)
Broad informational support of
investors
http://invest.belarus.by - market advantages, where to invest, investment
climate, legal framework, key economic branches, successful projects…)
List of the investment projects:
http://w3.economy.gov.by/ministry/bip.nsf/alleng.html
http://invest.bspn.by
Minsk region: http://invest.bspn.by/content/category/3/8/11/
Mogilev region : http://invest.bspn.by/content/category/2/10/10/
Brest region : http://brest-region.by/topic.php?tid=3952
Vitebsk region : http://www.vitebsk-region.gov.by/ru/business/
Gomel region : http://invest.gomel-region.by
Grodno region : http://www.region.grodno.by/ru/economic/invest
Agencies (members of GC):
http://uniter.by – financial and investment consultating
http://vmp.by – legal services for business and foreign investors
http://p-g.by – marketing, finances, business planning
www.bkc.by – consultanting centre