The Belarusian-Slovenian business forum took place in the Slovenian city of Maribor on 23-25 September, more than 130 participants – the representatives of Belarusian and Slovenian companies of engineering, pharmaceutical, construction, energy and other industries, as well as the representatives of financial institutions took part in it.
The main attention was devoted to the possibilities for bilateral investment cooperation between the countries. For a detailed discussion a round table was held with the representatives from the public and private sectors of the two countries.
“Belarus has a highly skilled personnel and far-reaching possibilities of trade cooperation in the region. At the same time the advantage of Slovenian companies is efficient technologies. By joint efforts both sides win as they receive high quality products at lower cost, ”- Head of the Slovenian Centre for International Cooperation and Development in the Republic of Belarus Dawlat Yusupov said during the presentation.
“One of the opportunities for the potential growth of our economies is the cooperation: combination of technology, best practices, value chains, financial instruments, — said project manager of the National Agency of Investment and Privatization Roman Proskalovich. — The most promising industries for our countries are mechanical engineering, motor industry, car assembly sets and components, pharmaceuticals, woodworking, energy, ICT and food industry.”
During the presentation of investment climate of the countries, the Belarusian side mentioned the upcoming change, such as improvement of the business environment for foreign companies in Belarus.
“Since 2016 a new for the Belarusian legal system Institute of “shareholder’s agreement” is introduced. If in practice shareholder’s agreements have been recently signed and implemented, still in case of a dispute, such agreements could be critically assessed by the judges as an unforeseen by the legal system, and a number of issues in such cases have been clearly and directly governed by the national legislation. Now the legislation in this area is being liberalized, and business partners can settle a number of issues in advance, concluding the agreement. Firstly, it minimizes the possibility of corporate disputes, as well as gives foreign investors some guarantees, who plan to enter the Belarusian market and want to formalize the rights and business relations ”, — said lawyer of a full service law firm “Sysouev, Bondar , Khrapoutski” Andrey Shimonovich.
At the same time, as considered by the organizers of the Forum (city government of Maribor and the Center for International Cooperation and Development of the Republic of Slovenia) the main objective of the event was the establishment of practical contacts on the micro level, which in turn determined the format of the event: after the presentation of economic and investment opportunities of each country the participants discussed all those present companies and their proposals for cooperation. Forum participants also presented their investment projects, among them — the Belarusian project of a new generation of transport systems, developed by a group of companies SkyWay. The participants could discuss all the mentioned opportunities for cooperation in detail during the meetings B2B.
Cultural cooperation between Belarus and Slovenia did not remain without attention. Within the framework of the Forum a special art exhibition of Belarusian artists Tatiana Radzivilko, Konstantin Selihanov, Vladimir Parfyanok was held under the title “Dialogues”, which spoke for itself.
