19, December. The 16th meeting of the Belarusian-German trade and investment working group was held in the China-Belarus Industrial Park «The Great Stone».
The delegations included representatives of Belarusian and German government agencies, the Belarusian Chamber of Commerce and Industry, the China-Belarus industrial park Great Stone, the Hi-Tech Park, the Development Bank of the Republic of Belarus, Belarusbank, the Belarusian Universal Commodity Exchange, the National Agency of Investment and Privatization (NAIP), the German Economic Group in Belarus, the German Energy Agency (DENA), and other organizations.
The participants got acquainted with the park’s construction, resident companies and business environment. Also they attended «one station» service center and China Merchants Group trade and commercial center that is considered to be the largest in the country.
Two German companies, LLC “Composite materials” and LLC “SF Medical Products”, already became residents of Great Stone Industrial Park. AG “Duisburger Hafen”, а logistic operator of Duisburg, one of the largest river ports in EU, became one of China-Belarus Joint-Stock Closed Company «Industrial Park Development Company» shareholders on April 18, 2018.
During the meeting the parties discussed investments, trade and economics cooperation as well as partnership in such spheres as finance, IT, power industry.
Belarusian Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Evgeny Shestakov noted the interest of German companies in Belarus is growing over the past two years. The positive dynamics of bilateral trade is maintained in 2018 year. In the period from January to October 2018 year, the trade turnover increased by almost 18% compared with the same period last year and amounted to $ 2.7 billion. At the same time, Belarusian exports increased by 35.8% to $ 1.2 billion.
«I believe we can reach $3 billion trade turnover as a result of this year», said Yevgeny Shestakov. In his words, Belarus-Germany trade is getting more balanced. It is also important that the structure of Belarus' export to Germany is sufficiently diversified: over 400 commodity items were exported in 2017-2018.
The Deputy Head of Investors Servicing Department (NAIP) Artyom Shkril, presented to the German colleagues a report about the investment potential of Belarus: «The Republic of Belarus and the Federal Republic of Germany have long and successful investment relations in such areas as woodworking, information technologies, metalworking, logistics, etc. The volume of gross investment from Germany to Belarus in the period from January to September 2018 was $334.7 million (2.4 times more than over the comparable period of 2017), including $90.0 million were direct investments (1.4 times more compared to the comparable period of 2017), of which $55.8 million were investments on a net basis (2.3 times more relative to the comparable period of 2017)».
As one of the successful examples of projects in 2018: the German company «Polipol Produktions Verwaltungs GmbH», which signed an investment agreement with the Republic of Belarus and opened a successful production of furniture in Ivatsevichi (Brest region). The investments is estimated at 20 million euros.
The Belarusian representatives were also interested in exchanging of experience with German companies in the field of transition to a new technological level, widespread introduction of elements of digitalization into production, electromobility development and related infrastructure.
Eckhardt Franz, Director of the Foreign Economic Policy Department of the Federal Ministry of Economics and Energy of Germany, announced his position about Belarusian effort to join World Trade Organization during the meeting.
«We support Belarussian effort join the WTO. Belarusian Minister of Finance spoke with our State Secretary and absolutely clearly emphasized that Belarus intends to join the WTO in 2019. This is very important», said Eckhardt Franz. He noted the growth of bilateral trade between the countries and expressed the hope that Belarus and Germany will be able to maintain this positive trend.
Eckhardt Franz also reminded that at the beginning of the year Belarus increased its position in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development rating, having moved from the 7th to the 6th group of countries on the classification of credit risk. «Belarus could try to rise to the 5th position», he said. «This would make many things easier. I think this should be the next goal». Belarus continues to negotiate with countries of the World Trade Organization about permission to access to markets for goods and services. For example, a relevant protocol was signed with Switzerland in December. Switzerland became the 20th member of the WTO which supports Belarus. 10 states were signed similar protocols during the period from 2017 to 2018.
The Belarusian-German working group takes place once a year. Germany will be the platform for negotiations in 2019.
Based on BELTA