Golovchenko on Belarus’ main economic priority for coming years

The country needs to increase the scientific intensity of products and invest more in commercial projects – as stated by Chairman of the Board of the National Bank Roman Golovchenko who heads the working group on finalising the draft programme of the country’s socio-economic development in 2026-2030

After today’s meeting with the President, Mr. Golovchenko told reporters, “We have reserves to reach higher positions. We need to seriously increase the volume of investments in the production sector and commercial projects that will contribute to the added value growth. The work of the group created by a Presidential decree to finalise the draft programme of socio-economic development in the coming five years is aimed at these and other tasks.”

According to Mr. Golovchenko, there are two issues that need to be worked on very seriously. “Firstly, it is necessary to increase the knowledge intensity of products. Differently speaking, everyone – including the state and small firms – should invest more in innovation. If we want to avoid being a catch-up economy by classification, we need to seriously increase the innovation of our own products, and for this we need to increase research and development costs, including in commercial enterprises. This is one part of the dilemma. The second part includes investments in general in the commercial sector, which will add more value than we currently have. I see this as one of our main economic priorities for the near future, one of the key and fundamental points for the country's growth and development in the next five years and beyond,” he explained.