Events

New Belarusian economy minister to bolster public sector performance, resilience to external shocks

MINSK, 4 January (BelTA) – The Economy Ministry has been given several key tasks: personnel management, the improvement of public sector performance, and fight against external shocks, BelTA learned from newly appointed Belarusian Economy Minister Aleksandr Chervyakov on 4 January.

The official said the head of state had given the Economy Ministry several key tasks. The number includes the improvement of personnel qualifications, the quality of work of the public sector, and the performance of enterprises at the micro level, and the reduction of the national economy’s vulnerability to external shocks. Aleksandr Chervyakov noted: “We are ready to offer various alternative scenarios for the development of the economy and talk about the forecasts, which someone may not be totally inclined to hear but we have to tell the truth.”

The Economy Ministry expects solid results from efforts meant to modernize enterprises and various other branches of the economy, including the sphere of services, hi-tech industry, pharmaceutics industry, and biotechnology industry. “We should get these branches involved as much as possible,” the economy minister stressed. Apart from that, he believes it is necessary to vigorously seek alternative sources of raw materials since prospects of buying energy resources from conventional sources are unclear.

“If we explore all these avenues, I think our economy will be quite resilient to external shocks. It is very important to tap into our human resources potential since we underuse it,” Aleksandr Chervyakov stated. He also reminded about the instruction to raise the GDP to $100 billion by 2025. “If we use all the resources in the economy to the max, the task can be accomplished,” the official believes.