English

Premier: Belarus will not survive without investment

Belarusian Prime Minister Syarhey Sidorski called for intensive efforts to increase investment inflows, saying that the country would not survive without them.

"We will not survive without investments and new plants" the press office of the Belarusian Council of Ministers quoted the premier as saying at the cabinet`s meeting on November 26.

"We have missed a lot of important proposals," he said. "Time requires you to accelerate work in drawing investments."

Mr. Sidorski criticized the central and local government for sluggishness and procrastination.

"The global financial crisis has revealed a series of problems, which suggests the need to speed up the fulfillment of the government`s orders to draw foreign investments," he said.

He said that representatives of foreign companies "have to walk around our ministries and executive committees for several months to offer their projects."

Mr. Sidorski accused the local authorities of giving lame excuses for failures to meet targets for investment inflows. "They refer to the absence of land plots for construction or cite the absence of the legal framework," he said, noting that the local authorities now acknowledged that they were lagging behind the targets and "tossed" statistical data in an attempt to report favorable performance indicators with the help of the output of the free economic zones.

Mr. Sidorski said that the economy ministry should be aware of the situation at every specific company and treat potential investors with "respect."

He also chided the industry ministry for delaying its reply to the proposal of "international auto giants who are offering to work in cooperation with MAZ and BelAZ." "No proper interest was showed in Korean investors that offered joint projects to Intehral and Horizont," the press office quoted Mr. Sidorski as saying.