Business news

MINSK, 11 May (BelTA) – China Merchants Group intends to build a logistics hub as large as 1 km2 in the China-Belarus industrial park Great Stone, BelTA learned from Li Jianhong, Chairman of China Merchants Group, during the Belarusian-Chinese interregional business forum on 11 May.

“We are going to build a logistics hub as large as 1 km2 in the China-Belarus Industrial Park and plan to invest $500 million,” said Li Jianhong. He specified that there are plans to build 50,000m2 of the premises this year.

The logistics hub is supposed to become a link between Asia and the European Union. “Belarus is a land country. In order to attract major enterprises to the industrial park, it is necessary to come up with ways to reduce the prime cost of merchandise through streamlining transportation costs. We would like to build this road for the park’s resident companies,” noted the head of the Chinese company as he commented on the need to build the logistics hub.

China Merchants Group is a Chinese state-run conglomerate with versatile business interests. It is headquartered in Hong Kong. China Merchants Group’s history goes back to 1872. The company focuses on port industry, logistics, maritime traffic, real estate, financial services, production of containers, transportation equipment and paints.

The China-Belarus industrial park Great Stone is a territorial unit with a special legal regime meant to enable comfortable conditions for doing business. The park's concept provides for creating a convenient infrastructure for developing business, granting a considerable tax respite to participants of the project for a rather lengthy period of time, and providing a set of services to residents of the park. The priority business avenues of the park include the development of fine chemistry, biomedicine, electronics industry, mechanical engineering.

The park is located in Smolevichi District, Minsk Oblast 25km away from Minsk in the immediate proximity to an international airport, the railway network, and the transnational motorway Berlin-Moscow. There are plans to set up manufacturing and residential zones in the park, office premises, trade and entertainment ones, a financial center and an R&D center.

On 10 May the administration of the China-Belarus Industrial Park, the management of the companies China Merchants Group and Sinomach signed an agreement on strategic cooperation in the sphere of investments in the China-Belarus Industrial Park.