Business news

MINSK, 24 September (BelTA) – The bill on public private partnership has been developed with assistance of the best international experts. Belarusian First Deputy Economy Minister Alexander Zaborovsky made the statement at the expanded participation session of the Economic Policy Commission of the House of Representatives of the National Assembly on 24 September, BelTA has learned.

Alexander Zaborovsky noted: “We’ve been trying to work with colleagues on the bill. We’ve been discussing it, inviting the best international experts in order to get an effective law that will make an important contribution to the development of public private partnership in Belarus.”

In his words, the authors tried to avoid putting too many details into the bill since public private partnership in Belarus is in an early stage of development. “We understand that legislation cannot and should not provide for every possibility. The law focuses on principal matters while leaving opportunities open for improving the law enforcement practice in the course of the implementation of relevant projects,” explained the Belarusian First Deputy Economy Minister.

Alexander Zaborovsky stressed that the bill had incorporated fundamental principles such as openness, competitiveness, and the government’s adherence to the obligations the government is going to undertake within the framework of public private partnership projects.

According to the source, once the bill goes through the parliament, the budget process will be able to incorporate all the procedures relevant for implementing public private partnership projects in Belarus and the seven projects that have been shortlisted already. “It is remarkable that our legislative procedures allow adding amendments and polishing parts of the bill for the sake of optimizing the final document,” noted Alexander Zaborovsky.

In turn, Chairman of the Economic Policy Commission of the House of Representatives of the National Assembly Viktor Valyushitsky stated that the bill on public private partnership is expected to get the first reading on 2 October. “This is why we are interested in the opinion of international experts about our bill and the work done by the Economy Ministry as the bill’s developer and naturally our commission, where the bill is now,” said the MP.