MINSK, 6 February (BelTA) – The plan to put the unused property back into the economic use 2017 has been executed by 60% in Belarus, Belarus Prime Minister Andrei Kobyakov said at the meeting of the Presidium of the Council of Ministers to discuss the mechanism of putting the unused and underutilized property into economic turnover, BelTA has learned.
“The plan to put the unused property back into the economic use has been executed by 60%. The reasons are many, ranging from the low demand for unused property put up for auctions and ending with the complicated sale procedures and high costs of demolition works,” the prime minister said. In this regard, the prime minister asked the State Property Committee to report why there is no notable progress in this work, what problems there are, and what prevents the ministers and local authorities to solve this problem.
Andrei Kobyakov noted that today there is the demand for property on the part of small and medium-sized businesses. There are all the necessary tools: the right to sell the property for one base amount, free use of the facilities under the job creation program. However, not all have used such tools to solve the main task: to create new jobs, to increase budget revenues through the growth of the economy and tax base, the prime minister said.
New opportunities have opened up with Ordinance No.7 “On entrepreneurship development”, which is the key document in the package of regulations designed to improve the country's business climate. “We need to use the new tools in working with unused assets. First and foremost, this is the task for the regional and district authorities,” Andrei Kobyakov said.
At the end of 2017, there were more than 2.3 million square meters of unused property, or 1.9% of the total immovable public property in Belarus.
In 2017 the work was underway with regard to 3,500 objects. Almost 2,700 auctions to sell the unused property were held last year. More than 120,000 square meters of facilities were transferred to private business to create new jobs. More than 250 objects were sold for one base amount. “These figures are markedly higher than those achieved in 2016. Much work has been done. Yet, the results, in my opinion, are far from what we aimed for,” Andrei Kobyakov said.
