MINSK, 19 May (BelTA) – Small and medium private enterprises will make import substitutes for major enterprises, BelTA learned from Director General of the Belarusian Fund for Financial Support of Entrepreneurship Piotr Arushanyants.
Piotr Arushanyants said: “Our main task is to work out the projects, which truly match import substitution, and provide assistance to customers, who are as a rule major manufacturing enterprises. At present such enterprises buy goods abroad but they will be able to buy them in Belarus. Our small and medium private enterprises will make these goods. We are talking about billions of U.S. dollars. It is what is already possible taking into account the technological level of the Belarusian private sector and the available technologies.”
Dedicated sites are usually allocated for invigorating interaction between SMEs and major customers. In his words, various trade platforms, including manufacturing cooperation platforms, can be used as such sites.
Piotr Arushanyants went on saying: “We actively use online platforms for now. We arrange online conferences every week and we already see that dozens of contracts are being signed thanks to such business matchmaking sessions. It is convenient, fast, and modern yet at the same time quite many issues cannot be addressed even via a videoconference. Live meetings are necessary. Major enterprises organize live meetings using their own premises in the form of kind of doors open days. Small and medium private enterprises very actively participate in such meetings. Such meetings allow immediately evaluating development prospects of an enterprise, discuss terms and deadlines of deliveries with process engineers, product designers, engineers, and economists. It accelerates the process of interaction and manufacturing cooperation. Respectively it simplifies work.”
Speaking about capabilities of the national information resource for manufacturing cooperation, Piotr Arushanyants noted that the resource allows major enterprises to post orders while suppliers – small and medium private enterprises – can browse the orders and set up meetings. The website allows directly contacting the executives, who can evaluate technical and economic parameters, and those, who can participate in negotiations and answer questions of small and medium businesses.
Piotr Arushanyants said: “We've already calculated that over $15 million of extra products have been bought from SMEs. Mutual interest continues rising. It is worth noting that the projects where the sides have agreed to engage in manufacturing cooperation will be able to get financial support at the expense of government programs on supporting small and medium businesses.”
