MINSK, 14 November (BelTA) – It would be a good idea to pass legislation on special investment contracts. The initiative has been included into the government's action program for the period till 2020, BelTA learned from Chairman of the Council of the Republic of the National Assembly of Belarus Mikhail Myasnikovich during the parliamentary hearings held on 14 November to discuss the legal and practical aspects of improvement of Belarus' investment climate.
Mikhail Myasnikovich urged to deal with the matter in the current five-year term. In his words, a special investment contract guarantees domestic sales for some of the products resulting from an investment project. The feature reduces risks for the investor, particularly in the first few years after the product hits the market.
Mikhail Myasnikovich pointed out that Russia and Kazakhstan had already chosen the way of legislating special investment contracts. As a result, Belarusian companies, particularly industrial enterprises, have to deal with unfair competition conditions in the common Eurasian economic space, stated the head of the upper chamber of the Belarusian parliament. The competitive edge of products made without this kind of state support gets blunted.
Apart from that, the Council of the Republic suggests legislating the introduction of a stabilization proviso. The proviso will exempt investors from new legislation, which may worsen the conditions of their work in comparison with the terms the investors were offered when the investment contract was signed. The instrument has been introduced for resident companies of the China-Belarus industrial park Great Stone for the period of ten years. “We believe the instrument can be offered to all companies with foreign capital and to domestic investors as part of the efforts to revise the Tax Code,” noted Mikhail Myasnikovich. He admitted that it may be advisable not to offer the stabilization proviso to material-intensive and energy-intensive projects.
