Business news

7 Jul 2026

Kupalovskoye holding company to be split into separate entities

An archive photo

MINSK, 7 June (BelTA) – Several independent agricultural enterprises will be established following the breakup of the Kupalovskoye holding company, which operates under the Belarus President Property Management Directorate, Mogilev Oblast Governor Anatoly Isachenko told journalists following the meeting to discuss the development of Mogilev Oblast hosted by Belarusian President Aleksandr Lukashenko on 7 July, BelTA has learned.

“The president has conceptually backed our approach: the farms will continue to exist, operate, and develop within their current borders. The holding company structure as such will cease to exist. Instead, there will be separate, independent farms, each with its own head, staff, territory, and bank account,” the governor explained.

“The Kupalovskoye holding company is being dissolved, and the farms are being transferred to municipal property,” he said.

According to him, in the near future, Novogorodishchenskoye, Lyubinichi Agro, and Bolshiye Slaveni will become independent economic entities.

At the same time, the Belarus President Property Management Directorate will continue implementing the previously planned development program for the enterprises of the holding company. The construction of a modern dairy processing plant and an agricultural service facility in Shklov will proceed. “Everything that has been developed and planned will be fully executed and completed,” Anatoly Isachenko pointed out. In the future, as these projects are implemented and reach their design capacity, there are plans to transfer them from national to municipal ownership as well.

Answering a follow-up question on why it was necessary to consolidate the farms at one time and why it has now been decided to split them, the governor noted that there is no one-size-fits-all solution and each situation must be approached based on circumstances. “A definitive interpretation or answer is inherently impossible. We believe that today, for their more efficient development, they [agricultural enterprises] must be independent,” he said.

Anatoly Isachenko emphasized that all agricultural enterprises now have a solid material infrastructure, machinery, and resources necessary to work and develop. “It was precisely working within the holding company under the President Property Management Directorate that provided the impetus and yielded results. The Property Management Directorate did a great deal, invested funds, and there is a positive outcome. Perhaps we did not achieve everything we wanted, but most importantly, we see that for further development, it is necessary to make this decision [as adopted following the meeting],” the governor explained.

“The main goal and idea is to make every district self-sufficient. In this case, Shklov District will serve as a model. Everything a district needs has been established there: a feed mill, a dairy plant, agricultural machinery [referring to the local agro-service center], an agricultural chemical enterprise, a mobile construction unit, road maintenance enterprises, and other farms that work for themselves and for the economy. In my view, it is a textbook district,” Anatoly Isachenko added.

As BelTA reported earlier, the president explained that the decision to consolidate these enterprises into agro holding companies had originally been made in order to secure a raw material base for the new modern milk processing plant in Shklov, which, on the president’s instructions, is to be completed by 7 November 2026.

The new facility has a capacity of 300 tonnes of milk per day. Such volumes must be supplied primarily by the major local agricultural producers such as Kupalovskoye and Alexandriyskoye, which are located on the best lands in the district and occupy a significant portion of it.

As for Kupalovskoye, the original idea was to organize it along the lines of the Dzerzhinsky agrokombinat. “It seemed like it could have been done. But instead, they worked in a slipshod manner, neither here nor there,” the president said as he characterized the work that had been done. There were also, he said, personnel mistakes. Instead of bringing in a few capable managers from Dzerzhinsky and placing them in leadership positions at Kupalovskoye, where they could have scaled up their successful experience, other people were appointed to those roles.

“In coordination with the governor and the district executive committee chairman, this work should have been properly organized. But it has not been. So what are we to do?” the head of state asked a reasonable question. “We cannot afford to lose these agricultural organizations, because they are situated on the best land in the country. Gorki, Shklov, Belynichi, Krugloye and Mogilev districts, the entire eastern strip, is the finest farmland in the east. It is hardly inferior even to Grodno Oblast. But Mogilev Oblast has always been a mess since Soviet times. Anatoly Isachenko [Governor of Mogilev Oblast] has not defeated it, as Berlin was defeated in 1945. It is still there. Everyone there got their own agenda. Sergei Bartosh has followed this suit since he was appointed Chairman of the Shklov District Executive Committee.”

The president also emphasized that the farms belonging to the agro holding companies under the Property Management Directorate have expressed a desire to switch to autonomous operation. “Can they work independently? Then let them work. There is nothing wrong with them not being part of the holding company. Since it did not work out, let them operate on their own. What is required of them? To deliver milk to Shklov for the new dairy plant; meat - to Mogilev for the meat processing plant; flax [these are flax growing farms] to the modernized linen mill in Shklov,” the head of state stressed.