MINSK, 13 October (BelTA) – Belarus' civil engineering industry continues dynamically developing in today's complicated conditions. Belarusian Architecture and Construction Minister Ruslan Parkhamovich made the statement as he and Prime Minister of Belarus Roman Golovchenko visited the ceramic construction materials manufacturer OAO Keramin on 13 October, BelTA has learned.
Ruslan Parkhamovich said: “We don't have statistics for January-September 2020 yet but I can confidently say that the construction industry continues dynamically developing. The construction and installation work growth rate is not bad – 104.5%. The industry makes a positive contribution to the gross domestic product. This is why we hope that the positive trend will continue till the end of the year and the construction industry will continue developing to achieve the assigned performance parameters.”
Speaking about the export of construction services, the official said: “Unfortunately, the markets have not opened as much as we'd expected. There are certain restrictions on travels of our construction workers even to Russia but in January-August 2020 the growth rate of the export of construction services was 96%. I don't think it will get any lower than that.” Ruslan Parkhamovich reminded that a number of projects have been launched in Russia's Kaluga Oblast. Belarusian construction companies intend to start implementing projects in the city of Voronezh and in Leningrad Oblast. “We are intent on reaching last year's performance figures,” he summed up.
Speaking about industrial output, Ruslan Parkhamovich said he believes that the situation is complicated. “The volume of industrial output dropped by virtually 15% during the first wave of the coronavirus infection. Since mid-2020 we've reached last year's results and see that the trend is positive. Judging by July 2020 performance, we did better than we did last year. I think this dynamics will stay in place till the end of the year. Results achieved in August and September confirm it. The output volume and the volume of export of industrial products are very closely interrelated because our staple industrial enterprises are export-oriented. It applies to ceramic tiles, cement, and gravel,” he explained.
The official also said that just like during the first wave of COVID-19 the Architecture and Construction Ministry is closely monitoring the situation at construction sites as well as at industrial enterprises. “We've managed to avoid a drastic drain on our workforce. The industry's lost a total of about 70 people. I hope we will not lose more than 100 people during the second wave,” Ruslan Parkhamovich said.
Asked how the pandemic has affected the export of Belarusian construction materials, the official noted that Belarusian manufacturers of construction materials continue working hard on exporting their products. “Russia is the largest and most important market. We continue selling construction materials to Russia just like we've been doing it up till now. We have not stopped exporting our products,” Ruslan Parkhamovich emphasized.
