By Tatiana Polezhaeva
“Projects are underway in the spheres of power engineering, machine building, petro-chemistry and agriculture,” notes Belarus’ Deputy Foreign Minister, Alexander Guryanov. Having attended a session of the Belarusian-Czech Mixed Commission on Economic, Industrial and Sci-Tech Co-operation, he stresses that Czech companies are taking part in modernising Grodno Azot and Naftan, as well as building new electric power stations. Moreover, joint work is being conducted to manufacture diesel locomotives in Belarus and two new projects are being launched involving Czech companies: new stock breeding facilities and a transport and logistics centre in the Minsk Region.
Following the Belarusian-Czech Mixed Commission session, we have signed a joint protocol for definite future projects. “We aim to realise all our agreements; our previous projects are already being implemented and we hope that our new ones will be similarly successful,” notes Mr. Guryanov. He underlines that the potential for Belarus-Czech co-operation is far-reaching. Belarus hopes to see not only traditional export-import trade but direct investments from the Czech Republic.
“Moreover, we receive significant support from Czech financial structures and EGAP Commercial Credit Insurance Company. In particular, Belarus is among EGAP’s top four clients regarding the insurance of export transactions. In this respect, many of our projects are receiving insurance and credit ‘in-feed’ from Czech financial and insurance organisations,” asserts the Deputy Foreign Minister.
According to the Czech Deputy Minister for Industry and Trade, the Co-Chair of the Commission, Milan Hovorka, Belarusian-Czech trade is developing well, having tripled since 2003. Bilateral trade remains buoyant in 2012. Over January-February this year, turnover between Belarus and the Czech Republic totalled $79m — up 24 percent on the same period of the previous year.
At present, 88 enterprises using Czech capital are registered in Belarus, including 43 joint ventures and 45 foreign companies. The volume of direct investments from the Czech Republic into Belarus totalled $16m in 2011, almost triple that of 2010.
