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Belarusian Foreign Ministry to Promote Engineering Exports
The Foreign Ministry of Belarus is going to assist in promoting the exports of Belarusian engineering companies. Belarusian Minister of Foreign Affairs Sergey Martynov put forward the idea of exports assistance while visiting MAZ.
At the meeting, MAZ leadership paid much attention to the barriers, which the Belarusian legislation creates for boosting the markets of trucks. At present it is extremely important to cancel the limitations of terms of returning foreign currency proceeds.
“The limitations block the possibility of creating consignment warehouses for components, which makes it impossible to organize service centers for MAZ trucks abroad,” MAZ representative explained. Besides, exports are hindered by the absence of exports risk insurance scheme.
At the conference the parties analyzed the position of the domestic truck-maker on the markets of Europe, Russia, Ukraine and other CIS states, the Middle East, Asia, Africa, and Latin America.
Participants to the meeting agreed on cooperation in extending exports and perfecting the legislation. The problems MAZ faces in foreign trade might become an impetus for creating state measures for supporting engineering exports.
On State Investment Program 2005
President of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko signed the State Investment Program 2005. The budget of the program is BYR 540.5 billion. The Government is a major source of financing and is going to assign BYR 455.5 billion.
Under the document BYR 44.7 billion will be allocated to the implementation of the presidential program "Children of Belarus", including the launch of new schools and children’s rehabilitation centers. The state program "Preservation and Use of Improved Land" will receive BYR 11.1 billion. The funds will also be invested in healthcare institutions, fight against crime, and other projects of social importance.
(2,173 Belarusian rubles are U.S. $1)
Belarus Wants U.S. to Revise Antidumping Duties on Steel
The Belarusian Ministry of Foreign Affairs jointly with Belarusian Metal Plant (BMZ) plan to initiate in 2005 a revision by the U.S. of its antidumping measures against Belarusian steel and steel products.
The U.S. introduced a 114.53% import duty on steel from Belarus back in 2001. Belarus plans to prepare an application to have the duties revised in May or June.
Starting in 2005, the U.S. cancelled the duty on imports of Belarus’ nitrogen fertilizers. U.S.’ producers were not interested in extending the measures that were launched back in Soviet times and automatically applied to Belarus after the Soviet Union ceased to exist. The cancellation of antidumping measures will allow Grodno Azot, Belarus’ only producer of nitrogen fertilizers, to expand its exports.
Grodno Azot was set up in 1963 and was transformed into an open joint-stock company in 2002. Belarus’ government is the only shareholder with a 100% stake. The annual capacity is at 900,000 tonnes of ammonia, 305,000 tonnes of sulfuric acid, 645,700 tonnes of nitrogen fertilizers, 111,200 tonnes of caprolactam and 55,400 tonnes of
methanol-rectificate.
Two IT-companies Working in Belarus Among the Offshore 100
Two IT-companies working in Belarus are among the Offshore 100: International Business Alliance, headquartered in Minsk (http://belarus.iba.by ) and EPAM Systems, Inc., headquartered in Laurenceville, NJ and having large operations in Belarus (www.epam.com).
The Offshore 100 honors 100 global companies that demonstrate leadership, innovation and outstanding performance in information technology and business process outsourcing. 2005 Offshore 100 Study was organized by a panel of Managing Offshore editors and neoIT experts (www.managingoffshore.com/0105_winners.html).
The study ranks EPAM Systems and International Business Alliance 1st and 2nd respectively in the list of Top 5 to Watch in Central and Eastern Europe.
EPAM Systems is 3rd among Top 10 Specialty Application Development Leaders. |
