OREANDA-NEWS. July 30, 2010. In 2011 Belarus plans to attract up to USD6 billion in direct investments, Prime Minister of Belarus Sergei Sidorsky said at a session of the Council of Ministers.

At present, the attraction of direct investments is the greatest challenge facing Belarus’ investment policy. “We are setting a task to raise up to USD 6 billion in direct investments in 2011,” the Belarusian Premier said.

Sergei Sidorsky commissioned local authorities with a task to scale up efforts to achieve this goal.

Describing the overall situation with investments in Belarus, the Premier said that in H1 2010, Belarus was short of Br2.2 trillion of investments. In his words, Belarus should make up for it in H2 2010 to be able to fulfill the 2010 investment targets (the investments should grow by 25%).

Sergei Sidorsky criticized the work of some government bodies on commissioning new facilities in H1 2010. “I ask you to approach this matter in a most serious way. Investment and innovation programs are two different documents but they both aim to raise direct investments and accelerate the modernization of the Belarusian economy,” the Premier said.

In H1 2010 the quality parameters of the economic performance have improved, Sergei Sidorsky said. The export outpaced import by 12.9%. In January-May 2010 the foreign trade deficit was \\\\$500 million less than in the same period of 2009. “This index is very important for us. For the past eight months we have worked hard on sectoral and regional programs to move into trade surplus by the end of 2012,” Sergei Sidorsky said.

“If we keep reducing the deficit at the same pace (USD 500 million every six months) and if we implement all the programs in 2010 and 2011, there are all ground to believe that we can move into trade surplus on 1 January 2013, in accordance with the parameters we have set out for the next five-year term until 2015,” the Prime Minister added.

“In H1 2010 inflation was 4.1%, down 1.8 times as compared with the same period a year earlier. Therefore the prerequisites are in place for the inflation not to exceed 10% in 2010,” Sergei Sidorsky said. He also demanded that the government agencies continue the work on reducing inflation in the second half of the year.

Speaking about the economic performance in January-June, the Prime Minister said that most of the parameters were met. GDP increased by 6.6% (the H1 projections were up 6%), industrial output – by 8.8% (6.2%), construction and assembly jobs were up 11%, and retail sale picked up by 15%. “These are good indices. The man point is that we have growth on a monthly basis,” Sergei Sidorsky said.

Sergei Sidorsky emphasized that a more vigorous economic growth is expected in H2 2010 compared to H1 2010. To reach the 2010 targets and the targets of the five-year period, the GDP needs to growth by at least 10%, so do the industrial production and capital investments. Belarus is well positioned to reach a 6-7% production growth in agriculture, too. According to the Premier, about 40% of the area under crops has already been harvested, over 3 million tonnes of grain has been cropped. Sergei Sidorsky believes that there are all preconditions to boost agricultural production.

The Belarusian Premier said that it is real to fulfill the targets of 2010 and the five-year period. Hard and painstaking work of government bodies, local authorities and companies is needed to achieve these goals.

Belarus’ GDP will grow by at least 11% in 2010, Economy Minister of Belarus Nikolai Snopkov told a session of the Council of Ministers.

“The achievement of the necessary growth rate by GDP-forming industries, the fulfillment of the system decisions adopted by the government, including program products that the industries have adopted, will allow securing the GDP growth rate as large as at least 111% and achieving the targeted goals of 2010,” said the Minister. Targets of the five-year program will be hit except for the import of commodities and services, the share of foreign investments in the total volume of investments, and the dynamics of the average annual number of the resident population.

According to Nikolai Snopkov, in order to fulfill the tasks, successfully end the year and the five-year term as a whole, it is necessary to reach the targeted salary growth, primarily by reducing costs in the real economy. It is necessary to attract the planned amount of investment resources and to use them effectively. In addition, it is necessary to reduce the overall materials consumption and materials consumption in key branches of the industry, agriculture and civil engineering. According to the Minister, it is also necessary to ensure the fulfillment of tasks set by the step-by-step strategy on the balance of the foreign trade in commodities and services, to improve the financial status of enterprises, primarily through liquidating external overdue accounts receivable.