“The proposals of the round table participants “Practice in the construction industry of the Republic of Belarus: Problems and Solutions”, which was held on February 9th in Minsk, will be discussed at the meeting of the Foreign Investment Advisory Council under the Council of Ministers of the Republic of Belarus” — the director of the National Agency of Investment and Privatization Natalia Nikandrova informed about the above mentioned at the opening of the round table.
The roundtable was attended by representatives of foreign investors, legal and consulting companies, the Belarusian Union of Entrepreneurs, the Ministry of Architecture and Construction of the Republic of Belarus, Republican theoretical and practical center of pricing in the construction RUE, NII Stroyekonomika JSC, Glavstroyekspertiza RUE, experts of the International Finance Corporation in Belarus.
NAIP jointly with the International Finance Corporation organized a round table to discuss the existing restrictions and problematic aspects of doing business in the construction industry, as well as measures to improve the existing situation in terms of improvement of the legislation and the existing work practices.
“We receive many questions from investors related to the work in the construction industry. Some of the issues can be solved with the assistance of the Ministry of Architecture and Construction of the Republic of Belarus, some of them at the local level. But they have to be raised and we need to seek joint solutions”, — Natalia Nikandrova said. “We have the Foreign Investment Advisory Council under the Council of Ministers of the Republic of Belarus, which is an effective mechanism for solving issues faced by investors. Within the council, there is a working group on optimization of norms and standards in the construction. Today we want to raise issues in the construction industry, bring them to the meetings of the working group and the council and solve these problems”.
The roundtable participants discussed issuing of the approval documents to economic entities for the project planning, construction, reconstruction, restoration, overhaul, optimization of administrative procedures, elimination of shortcomings of legislation, certification of specialists, procurement procedures and contractual relationship and others.
According to Artem Obukhov, head of legal and HR department Gallery Concept JLLC (developer of the shopping center “Gallery” with the hotel “Hilton” on Pobediteley Avenue in Minsk), there is a very complex system of technical conditions for the construction of high-rise buildings in Belarus.
“In our opinion, the reason for the small number of high-rise buildings in Minsk is the inflated requirements. We placed the hotel on the shopping center, the building became high-rise, and the requirements for it changed significantly. We had to develop specific technical specifications for the project. And we had to go through lots of approvals. I suggest to revise the requirements for the construction of high-rise buildings in order to develop adequate legislation. It was stated that we switched to European standards of construction, although we are far from them. Taking into account that we will have a single marketplace for construction services within the EEU, I think that this work will be very useful” — Artem Obukhov said.
According to Denis Chetverikov, the director of the Department of consulting and appraisal of Colliers International company, it is necessary to analyze the mechanisms of pricing in the construction industry of Belarus and compare them with the Russian ones.
“We need to understand why in our country the construction costs of commercial real estate are 1.5-2 times higher than in Moscow. We have uncompetitive construction costs”, — Denis Chetverikov noted. “For example, in Minsk it costs 1200-1300 dollars per square meter to construct an office building, while in Moscow comparable in quality building costs 750 — 900, warehouse – 900-1200 in Minsk and 600-700 – in Moscow. Investors ask why do we have such value. Let us compare, see that there is a problem, and let us begin to solve it”, — Denis Chetverikov said.