About 3,000 jobs created in southeast of Mogilev Oblast due to preferences since 2015

SLAVGOROD, 2 June (BelTA) – Almost 3,000 jobs have been created since 2015 due to preferences provided to southeastern districts of Mogilev Oblast, Belarus' Prime Minister Roman Golovchenko told journalists during his trip to Slavgorod District, BelTA has learned.

“The program to promote the socio-economic development of the southeastern part of Mogilev Oblast has been running since 2015,” said Roman Golovchenko. “It was updated two and a half years ago, because the measures that were originally laid down in the program exhausted themselves and did not produce the desired effect any more. The package of preferences was quite substantial and included income tax benefits. We made the most of these preferences in the course of five years. We brainstormed and put forward proposals on how to further improve conditions for investments into manufacturing,” Roman Golovchenko said.

The prime minister emphasized that the program made a difference and its impact proved to be sustainable. Thus, since the program was set in motion in 2015, some 290 businesses have been launched and 2,900 jobs have been created, a significant amount of housing has been built. However, despite all the benefits, it was difficult for many companies to get loans even under the conditions stipulated by the program. Indeed, loans had to be paid back, including by taking out money from businesses. In addition to that, some projects came to a standstill at a certain point, because there was no incentive to complete the construction of facilities and bring them to design capacity. Fresh solutions were needed.

“Together with the Development Bank of Belarus, we decided to conduct the following experiment: we do not just subsidize the interest rate on loans, we take money from the budget to fund those who make investments, be it own funds or loans,” Roman Golovchenko informed. “20% of these funds is returned in the form of cashback while a production facility is under construction, another 15% is paid back in equal shares within three years after a company reaches the design capacity. Thus, the total budget transfer is 35% that goes back to finance production growth. This scheme was used to implement projects in Slavgorod to launch production of marmalade by Krasny Pishchevik and cheese by Babushkina Krynka. This scheme has a rather large potential, the preferences for the southeast of Mogilev Oblast have not exhausted their potential,” the premier said.

According to the prime minister, the region also receives investments from the budget, just like other regions: “If we talk about the southeast of Mogilev Oblast, budget financing is mostly used to improve physical infrastructure in agriculture. This is not huge money - about Br70 million has been invested throughout the entire program. About Br8 million has been earmarked for these purposes this year. The situation in the region is not easy, because it still feel the impact of the Chernobyl disaster, so the government is helping these regions. And we see that people appreciate it.”