Do officials in Belarus deserve summer holidays?
Back in late 2007, Piotr Prakapovich, the chairman of Belarus’s Central Bank, made an ambitious promise to make Belarus one of top 25 countries in the world with the most conducive investment climate. The plan became almost legendary and was dubbed as “Prakapovich’s Plan”.
Komsomoskaya Pravda v Belarusi newspaper described this task as sensational:
“In terms of the business climate, Belarus is currently ranked 110th out of 178 countries. To become 25th, Belarus has to leapfrog over 85 positions”.
Despite Belarus has enacted several laws and abolished the golden share over the past several months in order to attract foreign investors, the inflow of foreign capital is yet to be observed. Prime Minister Siarhei Sidorski is not happy. If the situation does not change and ministers do not improve their performance, they could be deprived of their holidays.
“If everyone feels relaxed in summer, we will cancel their holidays”, Interfax quoted the prime minister as saying.
Belaruskia Naviny (http://naviny.by) also wrote about Sikorski’s anger.
“The Ministry of Industry secured only $150,000 in investments in the first quarter. The Ministry of Transport -- $16,000; the ministry of energy -- $78,000…Are we fine? Can we sort out all the problems with this money?” Sidorski lamented. He also slammed the Ministry of Agriculture.
Sidorski remained discontented with the fact that Belarus imported too much of foreign chocolate, biscuits, fruits, vegetables and household appliances.
Officials do not take Sidorski’s words seriously. “It is not the prime minister but the economy minister who approves my holidays. There have been no changes so far”, deputy economy minister Piotr Zhabko said in an interview with Komsomolskaya Pravda v Belarusi.
“I will not comment on the words of the prime minister. Most likely, he just said it somewhat passionately”.
Piotr Zhabko agrees that Belarus needs foreign investments a lot.
“Investments are needed to make our life better, to make more money and consume more… both in terms of quality and quantity”.
Most experts do not believe that Belarus will soon manage to enter the ranks of 25 countries with the most conducive business climate. Lawyer Siarhei Strelchyk, an expert with the Business Management rating, believes that at least several years are need to accomplish this ambitious task.
“Many stereotypes should be broken in order to overcome the existing barriers. Not only the legal framework, but our mentality should also be changed. When taxes are reduced, businessmen should understand that they should pay them. If licensing procedures are simplified, there should be more responsibility on behalf of entrepreneurs”.
Obozrevatel newspaper shared a recipe with the officials how to expedite the inflow of investments and deserve their holidays.
“There are no stable tax laws in Belarus. In addition, business taxes are very high and thus not attractive to foreign investors. Controlling agencies also contribute to the fiscal pressure which is virtually impossible to calculate”.
According to Obozrevatel, these two problems create hurdles for the arrival of foreign investors. As soon as the government removes these hurdles, officials could quietly go for holidays as investments would then arrive without their personal participation.
