Belarus-China industrial park to have 60 resident companies by 2020

Photo: belta.by

During his visit to the Hi-Tech Park on 12 April, Belarus President Aleksandr Lukashenko asked the IT community to put forward their ideas on how to drive the country’s IT sector further.

“It is important for me to hear your proposals on how to advance even further. Feel free to tell me what you need in order to move forward at least in the same pace as you did in the past two years. I am ready to hear out your proposals if you have any. If you are not ready to articulate them now, you can do it later. Your proposals will reach me within a day. The IT community thanked me for my efforts to promote the IT sector, including for my decision to pass Decree No.8. However, I believe that in many ways the IT sector is the one to say thanks to. The decree is more about you than about me. Once we took this risk and started building this park. It took more courage to set up the park than to adopt the decree you talked about. I had a long-term vision for the Hi-Tech Park when I signed it into existence. The world started moving in this direction. Everyone realized that we could not do without it. Our country is not rich in hydrocarbons. I was fully aware of it. We needed to find something that would drive our country forward and secure its independence, as we live in a wonderful, but very dangerous place – geographical center of Europe. Therefore, you need to be very careful and watchful in your actions and politics, in particular, when you are responsible for millions of people.”

The president shared the logic behind his decision to sign the decree on digital economy promotion. “I thought that we would not lose anything anyway. If we fall through, we will just move on. If we succeed, we will gain. That was my rationale. I signed the documents that you had prepared together with experts,” Aleksandr Lukashenko said.