MINSK, 15 January (BelTA) – While approving the appointment of Kirill Masharsky as Director of the National Tourism Agency, Belarusian President Aleksandr Lukashenko outlined new tasks for this sector, BelTA has learned.
“As for the tourism agency, we debated it for a long time. I am generally very cautious about personnel reshuffles, changes, and reassignments. I believe that in a country where there is order and discipline (and we do have it after all), it would have been possible to continue working under the previous system,” the president said. “But what won me over was their commitment to grow, to actually double the contribution of tourism within five years. Boosting its share of GDP from 2% to 4.5% would be great. But it will also be a challenge for you. I remember all this. And results will be expected. From the government, of course. And your agency is ‘the workhorse.’ So you must understand this.”
“If we had more tourism capacity now, we would already be earning good money. And it would certainly generate 4 to 5% of GDP. But we lack that capacity. We need to streamline the existing base and expand it. The agency already understands this. This work needs to be coordinated and monitored. Report any problems to the government immediately. If necessary, report to the presidential level. We will act then,” Aleksandr Lukashenko noted.
In a conversation with journalists, Kirill Masharsky noted that fundamental work has been carried out over the past six months to update the tourism industry’s regulatory framework. The goal was set to increase tourism’s share of GDP to 4.5% by 2030. “We will methodically move towards this result,” he stated. “The very concept of how tourism is perceived has fundamentally changed. It is now a concrete economic sector. Essentially, it has always been, but now the tourism complex is being reassessed to identify where and how growth can be added. A list of our top tourist sites is being compiled, highlighting where profitability can be further increased and where something is lacking.”
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