MINSK, 21 January (BelTA) - The China-Belarus Industrial Park Great Stone is an exemplary, rapidly developing project, Head of the Administration of the China-Belarus Industrial Park Great Stone Aleksandr Yaroshenko said in an interview with the V teme [On point] online project on BelTA's YouTube channel, BelTA has learned.
This is an excellent example of mutually beneficial respectful cooperation between the two countries. The construction site of the park was visited by the leaders of the two countries, something not every project is honored with, Aleksandr Yaroshenko noted.
"On 12 May 2015, Belarusian leader Aleksandr Lukashenko and Chinese President Xi Jinping visited the park when it was at the groundbreaking point. The project was actually still on a drawing board, but they helped to get it off the ground. In their presence, we registered the first resident companies and signed a general plan for the development of the park. Such attention and support is worth a lot. Here's the latest example of such support: in December last year the president signed Directive No. 9 on advancing Belarus-China bilateral relations. The document also touched on the development of the Great Stone park. It has set the tasks, approaches and priorities for the medium term. We are confident about our future because we know how to develop. A certain trend has been set," Aleksandr Yaroshenko said.
According to him, the benefits of cooperation with the PRC for Belarus are enormous. "China is one of the global economic powerhouses. The Republic of Belarus is developing this project, borrowing and developing high technologies and production innovations that give impetus to the economic growth. This is the most important effect, in my opinion, for our country," Aleksandr Yaroshenko emphasized.
Many doubted the success of the Great Stone park at first. But we proved them by many successful projects, Aleksandr Yaroshenko noted. He cited the example of the Minsk Automobile Plant that uses different engines, but the Chinese Weichai is its best option now in terms of price and quality, efficiency of use on a Belarusian truck. “The second example is the Chinese corporation Shaanxi Fast Gear, one of the leading producers of heavy-duty transmissions. In Belarus it is building a plant to produce gearboxes for heavy-duty vehicles. We had not had such competences before and used to import these products,” Aleksandr Yaroshenko noted. “Indeed, these are still the first steps. In the first and second cases, this is still assembly manufactures. I believe that these projects should involve local manufacturers. This will add to the future economic impact, among other things. This also suggests stringent requirements for the quality of components, for manufactured products. We must strive for this, win competition to supply such components for the manufacturing facilities in the Great Stone park.”
