English

Cabinet discusses outdoor advertising business

The Council of Ministers’ Presidium held a meeting on July 1 to discuss the state of outdoor advertising business in Belarus.

Speaking at the meeting, Zyanon Lomats, chairman of the State Control Committee, criticized the Minsk City Executive Committee over too low revenues from outdoor advertising, saying that the Belarusian capital’s budget could get one billion rubels more if the authorities worked harder on the matter.

Mr. Lomats said that there were too few advertisement billboards in Minsk and of the city’s 1,200 billboards only 51 were used to advertise Belarusian-made products.

Prime Minister Syarhey Sidorski, for his part, called for creating more attractive conditions for advertising businesses. “There are no such conditions in the country so far and officials often substitute regulation and coordination for real work and there is no progress,” he said.

“The government discusses these issues every year but nothing is done in the country except that you scale down business,” Mr. Sidorski said.

“And these are services that add to the gross domestic product. We are losing taxes, Andrei Vladimirovich. They have ‘painted’ business worth only five billion in the country. You are told: there is nothing in the country and we will not do anything. Our officials will continue sitting on each pole and deciding what must be put up. I am asking: an investor who has money and wants to come to our country with a world-famous brand, with a medium brand, he should read the law and act in accordance with the law if we have one-stop-shop service… Does one need to bring a bag to do advertising in the country?”
Mr. Sidorski directed that the government should solve all problems hampering the business in country by August 1.

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