01.02.2012
At the end of January a special annex to fDi Magazine “Belarus beckons. Europe's final FDI frontier opens up”. Organisers of the event on the Belarusian part was the National Agency of Investment and Privatisation and the Embassy of Belarus in the United Kingdom, the editorial board of the leading business newspaper the Financial Times on the British part.
fDi Magazine is a specialised magazine for potential investors forming part of the group of publications the Financial Times. It has been published for over 10 years with the periodicity of once per two months and the circulation of 15 thousand copies. The magazine's readers are investment foundations, banks, TNCs as well as representatives of the political and business elites on which distribution of foreign direct investments depends.
The 16-page annex to the just published issue of fDi Magazine is completely dedicated to investment opportunities in Belarus. (in the previous special issues the British journalists studied the situation in such countries as Poland, Morocco, Georgia, India). Following the results of their assignments to Minsk, the employees of fDi Magazine provided their independent and objective vision of the business climate existing in our country. An interview with the Ministry of Economy of Belarus Nikolai Snopkov and with the Director of the National Investment and Privatisation Agency Dmitriy Klevzhits was published in the annex as well.
The overall tone of the publications is positive. Belarus is presented in them as a new and promising direction for foreign direct investments. In the introductory article it is stated that Belarus is often imagined as the final place in Europe where foreign businessmen are afraid to come. However, interest to the country on behalf of investors is growing, they look behind the negative newspaper headlines and strive to become the discoverers of the potential not studied. Other publications are dedicated to the overall condition of the Belarusian economy, the most attractive areas for investing foreign capital (bio-, nano-, and information technologies) as well as the current privatisation processes, including the pilot project of selling eight enterprises implemented by the National Agency of Investment and Privatisation.
The event which took place in London was something more than just a presentation of a magazine annex and became a business forum of its kind. It collected around 100 participants among which there were representatives of the leading global banks and financial corporations (Barclays Capital, City Bank, JP Morgan), rating agencies (Fitch), international organisations (European Bank for Reconstruction and Development), and British business circles. The management of the National Investment and Privatisation Agency spoke about the investment potential of Belarus and main areas of its operation, representatives of the companies already operating in our country shared their experience of doing business. The meeting was used to establish direct contacts with the British business community and demonstrated a growing interest on its behalf to Belarus.