English

Lukashenka criticizes government for failing investment targets

 

Alyaksandr Lukashenka said during a Council of Ministers meeting on Friday that he was dissatisfied with the government's efforts to increase foreign investment and carry out investment projects.

Only 46 of the 76 investment projects scheduled for completion last year were carried out, he said, adding that the government had decided on the number of the projects and set the deadlines on its own.

Mr. Lukashenka slammed Economy Minister Mikalay Snapkow, who he said was responsible for implementing the government's investment policy. "Fascination with liberal thinking and market theories and constant looking back at foreign experts prevent you, Mikalay Henadzevich, and you colleagues working in a similar style from efficiently dealing with investment issues and other very serious issues facing the country," Mr. Lukashenka said.

He added that the National Investment and Privatization Agency was not performing well either.

Mr. Lukashenka noted that Belarus' fixed capital expenditures had decreased for several years in a row, mostly because of decreasing investment in the "active part" of fixed assets (machines, equipment and vehicles). They accounted for only 42 percent of the total amount of fixed capital expenditures this year against 46 percent in 2011, he said. Meanwhile, such investment should make up at least 50 percent of the total amount of fixed capital expenditures, he said.

Mr. Lukashenka insisted that the efforts of the ministers and the heads of the regional governments to draw in investment bore almost no visible fruit.

"All your babble about foreign direct investment yielded only $1.4 billion [worth of investment] in 2012, 65 percent less than in 2011," he said. "Even that amount went almost exclusively to the non-manufacturing sphere, trade and the financial sector." // BelaPAN