Opinions & Interviews

Lukashenko: IT, industrial upgrading are drivers of Belarus’ economic growth

MINSK, 4 December (BelTA) – The IT sector and upgrade of industrial giants are drivers of economic growth in Belarus, Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko said in an interview with the Russia 24 TV channel, BelTA has learned.

“Frankly speaking, this [the IT sector] is one of such drivers that will generate about $1.5 billion in export revenues alone this year. It is quite an amount for us. However, this driver was not discovered yesterday when digitalization became trendy,” Alexander Lukashenko said.

The president noted that this sector is growing step by step in Belarus. Great prospects of information technology came into sight over ten years ago; therefore the Hi-Tech Park was established. “The backbone of this park was human capital that started evolving in our common past. We had a decent education system: radio engineering and mathematics. We preserved it and started out from it,” the head of state noted.

Alexander Lukashenko believes that digitalization should penetrate not only the real economic sector but also education, healthcare and other areas. According to him, Belarus is promoting digitalization not only domestically, but also in other countries such as Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, other Central Asian republics. “But we have to understand that there is no breakthrough without adequate groundwork, especially in education,” the president said.

Another major area for economic development is the modernization of the so-called old-school companies, including MAZ, BelAZ, and MTZ. “We have never sought to break an inefficient enterprise down and start something from scratch, albeit we need projects from scratch too. But new things require a lot of money and specialists. We have preserved these old-school enterprises, revived and invested in them and got a tremendous effect,” Alexander Lukashenko said.

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