Brest corridor for Italian investments
11/03/2013 06:03
On February 22nd in Minsk was signed an agreement on creation of Italian industrial region in Brest district.
On February 22nd in capital business-centre «Victoria» in Minsk was held economic forum «Belarus- Italy» with the accent on creation in Brest district Italian industrial region. In the forum participated about 70 Italian businessmen representing big companies operating in the following branches: mechanical engineering, wood processing, construction, textile and leather industry, production of medical equipment and other.
In the business meeting participated representatives of banks, who generally control half of bank capital of the country. Such an imposing representation corresponds to the scale of the introduced task: the sides intend to double the presence of Italian capital in Belarus. And the corridor for investments should become Brest region. Deputy head on foreign affairs Valerij Voroneckij, deputy head of minister on economic development of Italy Adolfo Urso and governor of Brest region Konstantin Sumar signed declaration on creation of Italian industrial region in Brest.
The idea was mentioned for the first time during the visit of Italian government head Silvio Berlusconi in November 2009 when were signed the corresponding documents.
Governor of Brest region Konstantin Sumar in his speech mentioned concrete suggestions on the realization of the project. In his opinion it would be more reasonable to locate Italian enterprises on the territory of free economic zone «Brest». «The territory of prior development is the zone of airport that occupies the territory of 1200 hectares. Recently there has been field but today there have been constructed roads and has been created engineer infrastructure and are being built new production workshops.
The major assumed ground for placing Italian enterprises is situated on 26 hectares in western part of airport zone that is very close to automobile road М1/Е30. When necessary to this ground can be added one more ground in the western part of the chosen territory».
The governor also pointed out to Italian business circles the attractiveness of business development in small cities (in Brest region they are 25). Conditions of organizing business there are comparable to the benefits offered to the residents of free economic zone.
Italian industrial region according to deputy head Valerij Voroneckij should become an impulse for the development not only of Brest region but for the broadening of Italian business in our country as well. For this purpose in Belarus soon will be opened representation or a branch of one of Italian banks and will be built big business centre in close vicinity to Minsk airport.
In his turn Adolf Urso underlined that Belarus was of particular interest for Italian business as springboard for further work on Russian and Kazakhstan markets taking into consideration the creation of Custom Union. It will help to strengthen the position of Italian businessmen in these countries. Belarusian and Italian sided investigate the possibility of organizing railroad container transportations from Italy to Belarus and Kazakhstan.