OREANDA-NEWS. November 08, 2010. Belarus needs to increase export of road transport services to USD 1.2 billion by 2015, First Deputy Prime Minister of Belarus Vladimir Semashko said at a session of the Presidium of the Council of Ministers.

In 2009 this figure was USD 501.2 million. According to the First Deputy Prime Minister, it should be increased to USD 1.2 billion by 2015. A new national road transport development program for 2011-2015, which has already been drafted, has been specifically designed to meet this target.

According to Vladimir Semashko, a similar program was in force in 2006-2010 and proved quite effective. The volume of freight transportation has more than doubled from 51.4 million tonnes to 106 million tonnes. At the same time, the volume of passenger traffic has been reducing in recent years. “These volumes have plummeted to 83.8%, which is due to obvious reasons,” Vladimir Semashko said.

Vladimir Semashko criticized the pace the fleet of motor vehicles is being upgraded in the country. He reminded the participants of the session that transport enterprises were tasked to upgrade bus fleets by 10% annually, or by 2,300 buses. However, statistical data suggest that transport organizations acquired only 1,027 buses in 2008 and 1,612 in 2009. “I see that we are not going to live up to the projections,” he said.

The programs for the development of motor transport and transit potential for 2011-2015 should help achieve one fundamental goal, which is to ensure a 62-67% increase in GDP. When speaking about the transit potential development program for 2006-2010, Vladimir Semashko said that the program proved effective, with the growth clocking up 60% over the past two years.

In 2015 Belarus plans to earn up to USD 2.4 billion in transit revenues (nonregistering revenue from oil and natural gas transit), up 60% over 2010, Transport and Communications Minister of Belarus Ivan Shcherbo said as he presented Belarus’ draft national transit potential development program for 2011-2015 in a session of the Council of Ministers’ Presidium.

In his words, the new program will help improve the country’s legislation regulating transit, contribute to the further development of the transit infrastructure, expand the area of innovation technology application, increase competitiveness of the national financial market and, finally, secure high-quality transit services. “It will help create more favorable conditions for boosting up transit potential and reach USD 2.4 billion in transit revenue (nonregistering revenue from oil and natural gas transit) in 2015. This is 60% up from 2010,” said Ivan Shcherbo.

The new program envisages further reconstruction and upgrading of transit infrastructure, international cooperation including participation in the EU transit infrastructure development projects. The program provides for improving the system of international transportation, creation of new transport and logistics centers, implementation of new information technologies of border control. In addition, existing financial corridors will be expanded; the national insurance system will be further developed. All this will make Belarus’ transit opportunities more attractive.

The program will require Br4.4 billion. Some Br15 billion of them will be channeled into research, Br2.9 billion into implementation of modern information technologies of border control. According to Ivan Shcherbo, the most revenue-yielding type of activity is the export of communications services (200% growth). Other types of activities, except for transit of oil and natural gas, are expected to yield a 160% growth in revenues.

Imports which are needed to meet transit targets include the goods and services that are not produced in the country and are technologically justified. It is expected that in 2015 the maximum level of import-intensity of certain types of transit, without regard to the transit of natural gas, will not exceed 16%.

The draft national transit potential development program is based on the transit potential development strategy of Belarus for 2011-2015, which was approved in August this year.

Belarus plans to increase tariffs on transit of Russian natural gas across its territory in 2012, First Deputy Prime Minister of Belarus Vladimir Semashko said during the discussion about the draft national transit potential development program.

“This year the tariff for gas transit is USD 1.88. Next year it will be already USD 2 according to the agreement, and that means a plus 6%. In the future we will continue to debate this issue,” Vladimir Semashko said. Ukraine charges USD 2.5 for gas transit, he added. Belarusian experts should have this figure in mind, according to Vladimir Semashko.

In the coming years the volume of natural gas transit via Belarus will remain at about 44 billion cubic meters. “The physical volume will not be increasing, but the tariffs will,” he said.

The volume of Russian oil transit via Belarus is likely to decrease in the near future, the First Vice Premier added. “Oil pipeline BPS-2 comes on stream on January 1. The volume of transit will decrease, but then it stabilizes,” he noted.

The main problem for Belarus today is the foreign trade deficit. Each one hundred million dollars is very important for the country, he said.

According to Vladimir Semashko, in January 2010 Belarus signed agreements on the Russian oil supplies and transit. “Tariffs, however, are pegged to the US dollar exchange rate. Our tariff is denominated in Russian rubles, and it has weakened,” he informed.

Addressing the Presidium, the First Vice Premier stressed that all the abovementioned facts had not been taken into account by the developers of the state transit potential development program for 2001-1015 which draft is considered today in a session of the Council of Ministers’ Presidium. According to Vladimir Semashko, the document cannot be adopted in this form, it needs to be finalized.