The entrepreneurship support program in Belarus is in need of improvement. First Deputy Prime Minister of Belarus Alexander Turchin made the relevant statement on the air of the TV channel Belarus One, BelTA has learned.
Alexander Turchin said: “I remain entirely convinced that small and medium businesses represent the main factor in creating jobs. We have a lot of regions without major industrial enterprises. It is small business that should keep people employed over there. It is necessary to radically rework the entrepreneurship support program to make that happen.”
The first deputy prime minister is convinced that entrepreneurship support centers should become centers to support entrepreneurship initiatives where “any visitor could be consulted about starting a business and running it”. According to Alexander Turchin, municipal government agencies should see businessmen as partners and have to understand that the private sector helps resolve social and economic development tasks in their regions by creating jobs, paying taxes to the state budget, and doing other things.
As for the new revision of the presidential decree on measures to prevent the illegal minimization of taxes payable, the interested sides have agreed it needs to evolve, added Alexander Turchin. He spoke in favor of a balanced approach to arresting businessmen with tax arrears and sufficient assets to honor their commitments to the state for the duration of the investigation into their actions. “It seems to me it will be a very serious incentive. People will no longer be afraid of getting severely punished for small mistakes. Yes, punishment has to be unavoidable but it has to be commensurate with the error,” the first deputy prime minister is convinced. The presidential decree is supposed to be amended this year.