WHY INVEST IN BELARUS
1. Strategically advantageous location
Possibility to efficiently serve the most high-capacity and quick growing target markets:
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- EU countries (500 million consumers);
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- Russia, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, and other CIS countries (280 million consumers).
2. Direct access to the market of the three Common Economic Space (CES) countries (Armenia, Belarus, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan)
182 million consumers;
Common customs territory of Belarus, Russia, Kazakhstan with common customs tariff.
Equal business conditions (including the costs of the main energy resources);
Uniform rules of technical regulation, uniform sanitary, veterinary, and phytosanitary norms;
free movement of goods, services, capital, workforce;
Exemption from import customs duties for processing equipment, raw materials and materials those are imported to implement investment projects.
3. Preferential investment regimes and terms of taxation
Free economic zones (0% profit tax for 5 years; 10% VAT);
High-Tech Park (0% profit tax for 15 years; 0% VAT);
Industrial Park (0% profit tax for 10 years, 50% discount during the subsequent 10 years);
Small and medium towns, rural areas (0% profit tax for 7 years).
4. Rank of Belarus according to World Bank's Doing Business 2014 research
Ease of doing business: 63rd place (among 189 countries).
Property registration: 3rd place.
Starting a business: 15th place.
5. Developed transport and logistics infrastructure
Belarus is the optimal link between the CIS countries (Russia in the first place) and the EU countries, which could be advantageously used by foreign countries to locate their manufacturing, logistics, and sale units on the country's territory.
Annually over 100 million tons of European cargo cross Belarus's territory.
90% of cargo is between Russia and the EU.
Belarus is crossed by 2 cross-European transportation corridors, according to the international classification:
No. II (West-East - Berlin-Warsaw-Minsk-Moscow);
No. IX (North-South - Russian-Finnish border-Vyborg-St. Petersburg-Vitebsk-Gomel-Ukraine-Moldova-Bulgaria- Greece);
branch No. IXB - Gomel-Minsk-Vilnius-Klaipeda-Kaliningrad .
Infrastructure
Railways: 5,503 km, including 899 km of electric track.
Highways: 86,491 km, including 74,838 km of paved roads.
Oil pipelines: 2,983 km.
Gas pipelines: 7,502 km.
6. Unique privatization opportunities
Today about 70% of industrial production falls within the governmental sector - the largest national companies are in state ownership, which has enabled to ensure their full-scale support and to increase their manufacturing potential and international competitiveness significantly. To increase the efficiency of the national economy, Belarus is interested in developing mutually beneficial cooperation with large strategic investors, having selected the tactics of selective privatization.
The examples of successful privatization deals of the recent years:
Sale of governmental shares in Beltransgaz OJSC;
Mobile Digital Network JV.
National Agency of Investment and Privatization, together with the World Bank, introduces modern approaches and instruments corresponding to the advanced international practice, aimed at establishing more open privatization conditions which are understandable to foreign investors in Belarus.
7. Highly qualified workforce
90% of the population have a higher, secondary or basic education;
Well-developed system of dedicated training;
high level of industry and service development that enable the Belarusian workforce to work successfully in any sector, be it sewing, agriculture, biotechnologies or software development, etc.
8. Decent living standards
50th place (among 186 countries) according to the UN Human Development Report 2013;
Developed social infrastructure;
A unique eco-environment which is suitable for full and diverse life of people.