Krutoi: $116bn of foreign investment injected in Belarus’ economy in a decade

Since 2013, in fact, over ten years, $116bn of foreign investment has been injected in the Belarusian economy – as noted by Ambassador of Belarus to Russia Dmitry Krutoi at the opening of the Belarusian Investment Forum in Moscow, adding that the current task is to fill the investment programme for the next stage

Speaking to the forum participants in the capital of Russia, Dmitry Krutoi drew attention to the importance of activities to attract investment into the country’s economy, “The President of Belarus decided to hold a Council on Strategic Investments at his level. Actually, this is the first council that the leader of our country will personally patronise. And this speaks of the importance that our republic attaches at the current stage to investments. We have an open economy, foreign trade turnover accounts for over 100 percent of GDP. At present, 48 percent of the Belarusian economy is under direct Western sanctions. Therefore, it is critically important for us not to reduce this share of investment to GDP, but to keep it at the level of 20-25 percent,” said Dmitry Krutoi.

He noted that at the present stage the task of the Belarusian economy is to fill the investment programme for the next five-year cycle. Taking into account the fact that Belarus is completing or has already complete the work on the creation of such large investment projects as the BelNPP, the Belarusian National Biotechnology Corporation (BNBK) and a passenger car plant, Russia is seen as a priority partner in filling the future investment programme with large projects. In particular, the Ambassador announced co-operation with Russian state corporations.

“Today I will note our work with the Rosatom State Corporation. It is clear that they were implementing our largest investment project in Belarus – the construction of a nuclear power plant in Ostrovets – but in parallel there was a range of other civil projects. Just recently, with the commissioning of the second power unit and the completion of the construction of the nuclear power plant, a programme of investment projects with Rosatom was presented in its final form. We want to do the same programmes with Severstal, Gazprom, Rostec, NOVATEK – and I’m just naming those structures that are being worked on,” Dmitry Krutoi clarified.

According to him, the Belarusian Investment Forum (BIF) in Moscow is a good platform for presenting the capabilities of Belarusian development institutions, such as the Belarusian Universal Commodity Exchange, chambers of commerce and industry at all levels and the National Investment and Privatisation Agency.