MINSK, 14 June (BelTA) – Belarus and Austria express mutual interest in advancing scientific, technical, and innovative cooperation and in signing a bilateral agreement on cooperation in science and technology. The document is supposed to be signed in H2 2019. The plans were discussed as Chairman of the State Science and Technology Committee of Belarus Aleksandr Shumilin met with Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of Austria to Belarus Aloisia Worgetter on 14 June, BelTA has learned.
Aleksandr Shumilin said: “The agreement will allow us to set up a joint commission in the area of science and technology and arrange contests of fundamental and applied projects in areas of the strongest interest, including from the point of view of commercializing R&D results and creating high-tech enterprises.”
Austria is one of the top five largest investors in the Belarusian economy and plays an important role in modernizing Belarusian enterprises in a number of industries (power engineering, transport infrastructure, petrochemical industry, mechanical engineering, woodworking and metalworking, food industry, civil engineering, environmental protection, and other ones). The implementation of a number of major investment projects worth a total of $400 million with assistance of Austrian companies is nearing completion in Belarus.
Work is in progress on the possibility of implementing new investment projects in Belarus with assistance of the Austrian companies Lenzing AG (the establishment of an enterprise to make viscose staple fiber), A1 Telekom Austria AG (the development of 4G/LTE networks and modern digital services), Kronospan (the establishment of a new enterprise in the free economic zone Vitebsk and the expansion of a manufacturing operation in Smorgon), Europlast Kunststoffbehalterindustrie GmbH (the establishment of an enterprise to make plastic packaging). The projects are worth over $500 million.
