Another hi-tech park to open in Belarus

The Black Sea-Caspian Sea International Fund (BSCSIF) has plans to establish a hi-tech park in Belarus, member of the Council of Directors of the Fund Vitaly Buzdugan said at a session of the Council of Directors on 25 October, BelTA has learned.

The park is to include a cluster in the field of nano-, femto-, bio- and information technologies of the 4th technological paradigm, and a center for collective use of research, testing and industrial facilities. The first thing to be done to implement the project is to elaborate the necessary legal framework. The new innovative platform is to be located in Minsk Oblast.

Vitaly Buzdugan reviewed the completed stages of the project: the managing company of the future park has already been registered as a Belarus’ resident company; principled support has been granted by a number of countries represented in the fund, as well as from the EU and some international venture corporations. They show interest in the project from the point of view of finances, investments and research. Ways to attract resident companies have already been discussed, just like the forms of financing and participation of various countries in the project.

The construction of the park will mark the start of the fund’s industrial and innovative project Eurasian Innovations. “This program was conceived to be internationally distributed. After a successful start in Belarus we will build similar innovative platforms, parks in other countries of the fund,” the member of the Council of Directors said.

According to Vitaly Buzdugan, the fund chose Belarus to start its project for a reason. Belarus pays much attention to improving the efficiency of the domestic economy; it provides considerable tax preferences to encourage investments; it introduced tough punishment for the improper use of state property. It is also important that the country is an active participant of integration processes in the CIS and the Single Economic Space.

At the Minsk session on 25 October the Council of Directors of the Black Sea-Caspian Sea International Fund discussed the Eurasian Innovations project, ways to raise the efficiency of the fund and to establish cooperation with international organizations and other matters.

The Black Sea-Caspian Sea International Fund is a non-governmental and not-for-profit organization established in Bucharest in 2009. Members of the Council of Directors include politicians, diplomats and scientists from Azerbaijan, Albania, Belarus, Bulgaria, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Georgia, Iran, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Russia, Romania, Sao Tome and Principe, Serbia, Turkey, Ukraine, Croatia, Montenegro, Switzerland and the Republic of South Africa.