MINSK, 8 June (BelTA) – Belarusian Industry Minister Piotr Parkhomchik talked about the tasks the Industry Ministry has to accomplish on the air of the TV channel Belarus One on 7 June, BelTA has learned.
The official said: “The Belarusian manufacturing sector develops and occupies a decent place in the world economy. The work of MTZ and BelAZ shows that. Positive trends regarding MAZ have emerged. The company has adopted the policy of creating new products, in particular, electric vehicles. If the work continues, we are going to make products with new consumer qualities ahead of our competition in other countries.”
The industry minister talked about the importance and ways of raising investments. “The simplest way is to earn money yourself. In other words, earn a good profit and spend the money on developing the enterprise. BelAZ managed to do it in the past. We earned 85-90% of the means and spent the money on development. Not only the development of the parent enterprise in Zhodino but also all the enterprises located in small towns,” Piotr Parkhomchik noted.
According to the source, it is possible to raise investments abroad but one needs a good business plan and a competitive product for it. Once those are available, foreign companies and banking institutions are ready to allocate funds. “BelAZ is going to implement two major projects within the next 2-4 years. Their value is estimated at $140 million. The first one will cost about $57 million and will be implemented in Orsha. The second one costs $80 million and will be implemented at BelAZ. The money will be borrowed as long-term loans from Italian banks,” Piotr Parkhomchik shared the plans.
The minister also spoke about personnel problems. He noted that Belarus needs a school to train directors and executives. “It is necessary to take guys aged 32-33 with good accomplishments at the medium level, combine them into some group, and train them. The USSR used to have a good personnel training system. If we talk about BelAZ engineers, we talk about the fourth generation now. If such a chain is built, we will get results,” he explained.
According to Piotr Parkhomchik, the capacity of the Belarusian market is rather small and it is necessary to sell products in various countries in order to achieve great goals. Market diversification is one of the main slogans. In his words, a good competitive product that meets world technical standards at an attractive price is needed. Apart from that, mechanisms to promote exports are needed. Quite many presidential decrees are in effect. They help promote products to CIS and non-CIS markets. By utilizing all the mechanisms, one can achieve considerable success.
At the same time the industry minister underlined the importance of an open industrial policy, the importance of interaction with all the nearby countries, not only post-Soviet ones.