The economy of Belarusian agricultural enterprises can be seriously revitalized as early as this year. Prime Minister of Belarus Mikhail Myasnikovich made the statement at the session of the Council of Ministers Presidium held on 11 March to discuss the main guidelines of the state agrarian policy for the period till 2020, BelTA has learned.

The head of government underlined that writing off some debts is not the point, possible restructuring is. Enabling proper conditions for sustainable development is what has to be done, said the Prime Minister.

It is what the interagency working group established upon the instruction of the Belarus president in February in order to resolve problems in the Belarusian agribusiness is supposed to achieve. Mikhail Myasnikovich is the head of the group. By now a number of sessions have been held to discuss current issues in all spheres, with several proposals and draft legal acts prepared.

Mikhail Myasnikovich remarked that while working on the proposals and the draft legal acts the working group was focused on the idea of enabling relevant economic and legal conditions that will not contradict international commitments and the generally recognized international practices and norms. Instead, the conditions are supposed to ensure the effective expanded reproduction of agricultural products. This is why Belarusian agribusiness enterprises will be given the right to abide by market principles in order to use free wholesale prices for their products and enjoy state support from the green and yellow baskets on WTO terms, said the Prime Minister.

Addressing problems and the state of the economy of Belarusian agricultural enterprises at present is another batch of the matters the working group is busy with. “We base our efforts on the idea that Belarusian agricultural products — food and technical crops — are manufactured for export, for the sake of ensuring the national food security,” noted Mikhail Myasnikovich. “While achieving those goals it is necessary to enable proper jobs and living conditions for rural residents”.

According to Mikhail Myasnikovich, they have had hot debates regarding the distribution of functions between the government and economic operators. The main blocks in the scope of the interagency working group include the improvement of the state support for agribusiness taking into account requirements of the Customs Union and the Single Economic Space, WTO norms via direct state support measures as well as the improvement of the direct and indirect state support for agricultural enterprises.

The working group has also discussed a number of ideas concerning the improvement of the pricing policy for the Belarusian agribusiness. According to the Prime Minister, plans have been made to switch to free pricing step by step. Plans have been made for norms to step up integration processes in the agriculture. Debts of participants of integration bodies may be restructured. Their tax burden may be eased by reducing the profit tax by the sum spent on investments and the operating cost, explained the Prime Minister.

The session of the working group on 10 March involved veterans of the Belarusian agribusiness. It was suggested that the economic operators that take over insolvent agricultural enterprises might use preferences. Financial encouragement for heads of agricultural enterprises was discussed as well as matters that will entail an increase in targeted aid for low-income families.

“The role of government purchases will change,” Mikhail Myasnikovich went on saying. “The volume of government purchases will change. Conditions will be created to bolster the economic interest of manufacturers in selling their products via government purchases”.

Summing up results of the work, the Prime Minister mentioned some aspects that, in his opinion, still need polish. “We have paid little attention to human resources and labor encouragement, the observance of technologies, to discipline and responsibility, monitoring and control systems,” said Mikhail Myasnikovich. Although the instruction given by the Belarus president does not specify these matters directly, finding solutions without discussing these aspects would not be a good idea, said the Prime Minister of Belarus.


 

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