Opinions & Interviews

According to Nikolai Snopkov, the sides were unanimous at the meeting that Belarus and Singapore “are very much similar in their development, relatively small and are surrounded by fairly big neighbors.” “We are the resource-poor countries, the countries which have made an emphasis on business, initiative and human capital development. Singapore had done it some time earlier; it took the country 40 years to achieve what it has today. Belarus’ independence is only 20 years old,” the minister said.

In turn, Minister of Trade and Industry of Singapore Lim Hng Kiang stressed that Belarus’ development is worthy of respect. He believes that the average 7.5% annual growth of Belarus’ GDP over the last decade has been quite an achievement.

“We have agreed that we would form a working group of experts, representatives of the two countries, to invite our Singaporean counterparts to Belarus to see our economy. We have outlined strategic development areas in Belarus, their vision of benefits and risks, defined the moments that can be of the use from the viewpoint of complementarity and interrelation in development,” Nikolai Snopkov said.