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BUSINESS FOR PARTNERSHIP AND RESPONSIBILITY
What is Agenda?
We have the honor to present the National Business Agenda - the first one in the history of our country. This document is not a hand-book for improvement of the quality of the corporate management or the results of business activity. It is not only for business. Entrepreneurs get information and knowledge for their direct business from other sources.
Agenda – is a view of business of its place in its native land. It is a system proposal for improvement of business climate in Belarus. It is our help to the authorities in its intention to provide a sustainable development of the country, to create strong and prosperous Belarus.
Agenda – is a road map for creation hundreds of thousands of working places, attraction of billions dollar investments, modernization of the economy, raising of social standards of the populations in towns and villages within the country.
Agenda – is specific proposals for improvement of the financial state of the local authorities, regional development and improvement of the investment image of Belarus.
The fact of appearance of the Agenda itself - is an evidence of maturity of the Belarusian business community. We have realized the disadvantages of individual and branch lobbying.
We are learning to understand each other. We have gone through the period of negative social perception. Now we have come to an understanding that business of Belarus need system advocacy.
Agenda – is the contents and action plan for creation a publicly useful partnership between business and state. A substantial and mutually beneficial partnership between business and state is not built for a year of two. Such partnership is our strategic target. It requires an intense work of business and expert community, active participation of representatives of the law-making and executive power, deputies of the Parliament and the local Councils.
Agenda – is a call to launch a full value public dialogue between business, authorities and society. The dialogue is not for the sake of profit or turnover growth. The dialogue is for the sake of creation of an open and competitive economy, support of responsible producers and well-informed customers, encouragement of creation and innovations, development of the institutes of an effective, social-oriented state.
The Agenda is the result of analysis of the state of business climate of Belarus, interrelations between business, state and society. Its contents and proposals is grounded on public polls, proposals of business community of the country, scientific and research centers and international organizations.
Introduction
In the early 1990s business and entrepreneurship has become a new social and economic reality of our country. In the XXI century small and medium-sized business is ready to become a powerful factor of development of the country. It is becoming a system of realization of human and social capital. Nowadays business of Belarus pretends to a new mission that combines the potential of the population of the country and possibilities of the Belarusian state. Business community is becoming more distinctly a factor of the economy growth, strengthening of family, health and power of the nation. It is not an abstract statement. It a statement of fact. It is the result of integration of Belarus to the civilization - the world of globalization, unexampled openness, new technologies, ways of life and activity.
Every Belarusian wants to be a healthy, self-confident and self-made person. To provide him/herself and his/her family without any assistance. To invest in his/her own business and community. To be proud of his/her achievements, his/her family and his/her business. A large plant, a road café, a small bakery, a repair workshop or a tent in the local market place - every business is useful. While it presupposes a hard work, skills to manage the business process and to serve for a customer.
The private business of Belarus is potentially a serious social and economic power. It employs about 1 mln. people i.e. 25% of all the employees. 440.000 people get their salary in small business, 300.000 people - in medium-sized. About 180.000 0f individual entrepreneurs have an important meaning for the labor market of the country and maintaining the finance stability of the local authorities. If there is no private business in the country, the unemployment rate would be about 25%, the authorities would have to increase the social payments rapidly and the brain-drain would be irreversible.
Small business form 55 - 65% of GDP in Sweden, Germany and the USA, in Belarus - only 10%. In our country the number of small and medium-sized enterprises per 1000 persons is very low. In Ukraine - 5, in Russia - 6, in Poland - 22, in the USA - 74,2, EU-countries - 45 and in Belarus - 3,3. In 2005 from the total 32.700 businesses of small entrepreneurship 13.300 enterprises acted in trade and catering (40,6% of the total), 7.500 (22,8 %) - in industry and 12,3% - in construction.
We can really consider the Belarusian entrepreneurship as one of the most modern and educated social group. Almost 74% of those doing business have a higher education. An average Belarusian enterprise employs 11 – 50 persons. Only 5,5% of enterprises employ over 200 persons. Private Belarusian business is mostly small. It has a rich experience in working on the market. An average head of a private commercial enterprise of Belarus has work experience over 9 years.
Almost half of private enterprises do not finance their activity with credits, while obtaining a credit is a serious problem. Credits for more than a year total only 7,8% of the all capital. The statutory fund totals the lion`s share (70,2%). About 60% of enterprises have the rate of profitability to 10%, 14% of them - less than 5%. Only 2,5% of private business declare its high profitable activity (over 50% of profitability). An average private Belarusian enterprise pays taxes and duties that total 28,6% of its profit. And according to the Belarusian business community the tax 13,5% of the profit is fair.
Besides serious difficulties for business development, unfavorable investment climate a high demand for entrepreneur activity remains in the country. Almost 49% of those involved in business want their children act in business also. Almost 90% of the country population consider that the development of entrepreneurship is useful for the country, they treat entrepreneurs not as greedy egoists and cruel exploiters, but as suppliers of goods and services, creators of working places, donors of the Republican and local budgets.
Every business is a creation and braveness. Every entrepreneur is a creator of added value in industry, trade, service sphere or construction. He/She is not a dependant. He/She gives but not takes. He/She creates his/her future because it is matter for he/she in what conditions his/her family lives, where his/her children learn and what kind of old age he/she will have (however the majority of entrepreneurs think about it).
Action of responsible, independent entrepreneurs create friendly neighborhood, solidary local community, strong and flourishing country - New Belarus. The country that is able to settle any issues. Our home, hospitable and clean, contemporary and competitive, cultural and spiritual. It is the way of life of a country where entrepreneurs and the authorities are full and equitable partners.
If business and the civil society mutually supplement and enrich each other, if businessmen and politicians, state employees and budget-sponsored employees are able to pluck up their courage to face their future but not to recall their past; to continue further development but not return back, the country becomes strong and prosperous.
The Belarusian entrepreneurship has experienced much. We have experienced unfair competition with operators of the shadow market. We have learned to produce and trade, to create companies and brands. We have learned to understand our customers and foreign partners. Every day we create a new quality of life. We live and work in a real world, often face incomprehension, cruelty and boorishness. In order to work more effectively, to compete more successfully, to be more open-handed and attentive we need help from the state. No, not charity and donations, not an excessive care and special greenhouse conditions. We need Law. Strict and fair. Equal for all. Law that protects fair work and punishes for fraud. Law that helps and stimulates the national business to be competitive and socially responsible.
The Belarusian business is ready to become the leader of the post-Soviet area, to occupy a worthy place on the market of the European Union, in the international labor division, if our Government creates competitive advantages for us: stable money, available credit resources, developed finance market, clear and moderate taxation, free trade, simple and cheap access to the market. The distinguishing feature of Belarus should be an effective system of protection of property and independent, fair court. We offer an equitable partnership to the Government. We are ready to create a new dynamic economy, responsible and fair society, a strong and flourishing state.
We unite ourselves not around a person or a structure. We unite ourselves on the single intellectual ground, ideas of free entrepreneurship, and respect to the property rights. Social responsibility and an intension to create a real partnership with the state consolidate us. For the first time in Belarus we act not as specifically corporate lobbyists but on behalf of the Belarusian business, representing its interests and protecting its rights.
We consider that development of Belarus requires fundamentally other business climate and attitude of the authorities to the work of entrepreneurs.
The National Business Agenda of Belarus unites entrepreneurship on the priority reforms in the following spheres:
1) protection of the property rights and development of the market institutes;
2) taxation;
3) licensing and the system of giving of allowances;
4) checks, fines and punishment;
5) registration and liquidation;
6) access to information and openness of the state.
I. Protection of property rights and market institutions development
Protection of property rights of citizens is as important as protection of their lives and health. We consider that creation of effective institutions of property rights protection not depending on the sphere of activity, the size of assets and the country of origin, is extremely important. We have to state that Belarus has become a country dangerous for property. There is developed a humiliating for country`s prestige net of shops called ‛Confiscate“. Internal and external investors are afraid of nationalization. The property rights are restricted by dozens of different ‛tools“: price formation, setting expenses, reduction of production growth rate, licensing, obtrusion of production parameters, advertising or conditions of calculation with clients. The budget and the business of Belarus lose hundreds of millions of dollars of income because the goods which go from West to East go around the country. Even Russian insurance companies refuse to insure goods that are transferred through the territory of Belarus.
The Government has provided itself with extra authorities in order to take assets under its control by so called ‛golden stock“. As the result the investment activity has been paralysed. The practice of use of by-laws with ‛back date“ that regulates the economic activity of enterprises, contradictoriness of by-laws which are passed by state bodies has sharply increased the level of vulnerability of business, has complicated corporate planning and enlarged the threats of making mistakes in investing and production.
Even the risks of the owners who have recently purchased assets of state enterprises have sharply increased. Cheque privatization and the means that were invested in cheques were blocked. There is still a lack for a civilized and effective stock exchange market which is the most effective mean of attracting investments. Because of the high property and financial risks Belarus is still a country of extra expensive credit resources that complicates the development of entrepreneurship. State monopolization of insurance business, lack of update financial institutions at Belarusian market and lack of market infrastructure does not favor the modernization of the economy, the establishment of mutually beneficial relations between the real and the financial sector.
We believe that a good partnership between business and the authorities would appear in legislative forms of the following issues:
Ø Ban on confiscation of goods and property in extrajudicial order;
Ø Abolition of the budget planning and informing the state bodies about plans on fine-fees and size of confiscated goods;
Ø Creation of the conditions for simplified transition of an Individual entrepreneur to a legal person;
Ø Implementation of measures for real protection of rights of property for goods while doing business;
Ø A clear and honest definition of the ‛Moment of ride taxation check-up“ in the current legislation;
Ø Implementation of responsibility for issuing ‛back date“ legislative acts;
Ø Creation of an effective mechanism foreseeing administrative and criminal responsibility for interference intro the business of an enterprise by non-owners;
Ø Gradual abolition of limitations of utmost extra charge levels, profitability and price declaration;
Ø Adoption of a legislative norm on coming into effect of alterations to the legislation that regulate economic activity minimum 3 month after their publication;
Ø Creation of an effective mechanism of legal proceedings in the country with the courts judging according to the law, but not according to the governmental interests that were incorrectly understood, and their decision being implemented by everybody in the country;
Ø Abolition of moratorium to sell shares purchased for ‛Imushchestvo“ (‛Property“) cheques;
Ø Creation of valuable stock exchange market and development of competition among financial organizations and institutions;
Ø Creation of an effective system of credit rating of corporate security market;
Ø Abolition of the ‛gold asset“ institution;
Ø Abolition of the moratorium on the sell of assets purchased for cheques ‛Property“
II. Tax administrating
Belarus takes one of the last places in the world on the ease of taxpaying. We have an extremely high tax load. Belarus (113) and Uzbekistan (118) are at the end of the list of 155 countries of the world on the number of tax pays. On implementing tax obligations in Belarus one will need 1188 hours per year, which is almost 50 days. To spend almost 2 month for taxpaying is obviously non-perspective investments. General loses from the tax administrating make up around 6-8% of GDP or $1.7 – 2 billion. High expenses of enterprises are evident. We have to spend money for subscription for numerous specialized account editions, for visiting seminars on explanation of new instructions, purchasing and updating software.
The tax legislation is unstable, complicated and contradictory. There many cases when enterprises registered in different districts send the same requests to tax services and receive absolutely different answers. Interpretations of the tax legislation change depending on unpredictable circumstances, as for example the mood and competence of a tax inspector. The law on paying VAT had 23 changes. Article 84 of the tax code of Belarus on reimbursement by tax bodies of losses, caused by their activities, for enterprises does not work. Simplified system of taxation is not effective because shift on this system does not stimulate the activity of enterprises and entrepreneurs
We believe that a good partnership of business and authorities would appear in a legislative form of the following issues:
1. Simplification of the taxing system, consolidation of taxes and fees;
1.1. Abolition of all taxes raised in percents to salary fund (Extraordinary Tax and assignment to Employment Fund);
1.2. Joining up of all the profit taxes into one payment;
1.3. Abolition of assignment to innovation funds for non-governmental enterprises (funds of the Ministry of Trade of the Republic of Belarus, the Ministry of Architecture and Construction of the Republic of Belarus etc.);
1.4. Abolition of the real estate tax from the active part of the basic funds;
1.5. Abolition of the service tax;
1.6. Simplification of the procedure of payment of the ecologic tax;
1.7. Abolition of limitations to cover a range of costs at the expense of the prime cost;
1.8. Transition to flat system of income taxation of natural persons at the rate of no more than 13% with simultaneous abolition to tax the incomes that are lower than the living wage;
2. Reduction of the common tax burden, creation of the conditions for stimulating of investments and innovations.
2.1. Abolition of circulating tax;
2.2. Abolition of the sell taxes;
2.3. Reduction of the real estate tax for legal persons;
2.4. Reduction of the dividends tax to the level nit lower than in Russia (9%);
2.5. Permission for legal persons to purchase small portions of goods, raw materials, spare parts in Russia for cash with following payment of VAT to the budget of the Republic of Belarus (up to 60000 RUR in one bargain);
2.6. Reduction of norms of assignment to social insurance and obligatory insurance form accidents;
2.7. Abolition of special tax regimes and privileges for any sectors and enterprises, i.e. implementation of the constitutional regulation on equality of management conditions;
2.8. Reduction of the common tax burden till the level no more than 30% of VAT;
3. Simplification of the accounting, reduction of the document circulation, trsnsition to the international standarts of accounting.
3.1. Review of the principles of the simplified tax system for small and medium business with the aim of making them more attractive;
3.2. Implementation of electronic system of providing the tax accounting;
3.3. Increase of the period of reporting of tax accounting to once in a quarter;
3.4. Implementation of electronic system of providing the statistic accounting and reduction of its volume;
3.5. Implementation of the norm to the Taxing Code that interpret all the contradictions of the taxing legislation in favour of the tax-payer;
3.6. Reduction of the terms of storing of accounting documents after a chek-up.
Solution to these issues will show mutual understanding between business-community and the authorities. Belarusian tax system as a whole needs a systematical transformation. We believe that it is necessary to create a group of experts on working out a completely new tax legislation. The half of this group shoul consist of representatives from associations of industrials and entrepreneurs. It would then become the basis for competition and investment climate in Belarus. This will increase the role of every taxpayer as a citizen.
III. Licensing and system of permissions delivery
The system of delivery of licenses, certificates and permissions is not functioning as protection of people from dangerous goods anymore. It has become a mechanism of discrimination, the source of unfairness, excessive expenses and blocking creative potential and people’s initiatives. It has become an obstacle for the entrance to the market, first of all for those who need a job and additional earnings – the youth, women and having many children families. There is 90% of subjects of small- and medium-sized business which have to obtain different kinds of permission. At average a Belarusian enterprise has to obtain 6 permissions. They are delivered by 50 state bodies. They follow more then 200 laws. Obtaining 1 document takes around 2.5 months. General expenses for obtaining all the permissions make up around $1400. Even officials of regulating state bodies themselves cannot say exactly how some procedures must be implemented.
73% of enterprises cannot start the production of goods and services without obtaining the license. The average term of obtaining the license is 45 days. And this costs more than $200. Many enterprises have to pay to their employees only for standing in queues in numerous state bodies. The procedure of prolongation of the license is not any simpler than its obtaining. There is no a common informational resource where one can find the information on what documents are required for obtaining a sanction for doing some activity. There is lack for a comprehensive list of the documents. The requirements for obtaining permissions and licenses has nothing to do with the consumer rights. The practise of so called «expediency» licensing does exist. In this condition the system appears as a source for bureaucratic abuse, bribes and blocking creative motivation of people.
We believe that a good partnership of business and the authorities would appear in legislative form of the next issues:
Ø abolishment of licensing trade by retail and other kinds of commercial activity, which do not threat the life of citizens, their health and the environment also;
Ø unification of all kinds of permissions into one normative document (for example the Decree of the President of the Republic of Belarus ‛On licensing of separate kinds of activity“ July 14 2003 # 17);
Ø affirmation of a comprehensive list of documents (not being subject to a wider interpretation) required for obtaining licenses and permissions, and the order of the obtaining;
Ø Establishment of the administrative responsibility for persons issuing licenses (permissions) if they require to provide documents and lay claims to licensee that are not foreseen by the statements on the order to issue licenses (permissions);
Ø unification of the order and procedures of obtaining licenses and permissions in all the state bodies;
Ø reduction of the list of documents that are necessary to obtain licenses and permissions;
Ø bringing the statements on licensing of separate kinds of activity in correspondence with the Decree of the President of the Republic of Belarus ‛On licensing of separate kinds of activity“ July 14 2003 # 17 in regards to the terms for which the licenses are issued;
Ø abolishment of the norm on stop of a license` duration with regards to reorganisation of a legal person.
IV. Checks, fines and penalties
The character of checks and the system of penalties of commercial organizations in Belarus is a good confirmation of the trust crisis between business and the authorities. Belarusian enterprises are checked often and for a long time, approximately 10 times per year. When checking inspectors and controllers work on an enterprise in the course of two months, it can be then hard to concentrate on the innovative work. The bigger an enterprise is the more often it has checks, the bigger fines, sanctions and ‛voluntary“ contributions are. The controlling and fiscal bodies put obstacles on the way of formation of competitive national business. Fines and sanctions exceed the size of charged amounts in more than 100 times which leads to destabilization of activity of an enterprise, and often even to liquidation.
There is no a uniform practice of law enforcement in the sphere of business activity control. There is lacking a coordination between more than 20 control bodies. Scheduled and nonscheduled checks happen so often that more than 90% of enterprises declare annual checking by different state structures. Executive committees, tax administrations, fire safety check-up, sanitary inspectors, the police, licensing institutions and structures which keep price formation - any check can lead to bankruptcy of an enterprise. But for all that individual entrepreneurs are checked longer than small- and medium-sized business.
Commercial organizations and individual entrepreneurs have no protection from the controlling bodies. There are lacking rules of check conducting, transparency of its procedures. Sanctions are used on the basis of intermediate checking acts. Extra reactionary practice of unquestionable recovery of sanction amounts from accounts of enterprises is used very often. Controllers often replace functions of the court system and break the basic property rights: they withdraw and confiscate property, seize the assets, stop operations on accounts and so on. There is no statue of limitation on bringing to account for tax violations in the legislation, whereas the deadline set for the return to the budget superfluous amounts satisfied from an entrepreneur is 1 year. There is no a clear mechanism of punishment the controlling bodies for the caused damage to business. The procedures and the terms of reimbursement of the caused by the state structures damage to commercial organizations are not indicated.
We believe that a good partnership of business and the authorities would appear in legislative form of the next issues:
Ø setting a limit for the fine size from a legal person: 5% form the amount charged to the budget;
Ø Implementation of a clear differentiation of the fine depending on the kind of violation of the legislation;
Ø Bringing in correspondence to the current legislation of the Republic of Belarus the maximum limitation of the common amount of administrative fines to an official of a legal person on the amount of no more than 50 % of charged salary (Labour Code)for the correspondent month;
Ø To allow bank institutions to credit enterprises, organizations in the presence of a guarantee and a correspondence to the credit risk for paying taxes and fines;
Ø To abolish the Decree of the President of the Republic of Belarus #40 16.01.2002 because the majority of sanctions stipulated by the Decree are of a repeated, dubbed character and have been already foreseen in accounting for violation of the legislation;
Ø The practice of extrajudicial seizure of property of legal persons and individual entrepreneurs should be immediately stopped. It also concerns arresting of financial money resources on the bank accounts, indisputable writing off of financial money resources on the ground of one direction of taxation organs. Numerous misuses of taxation inspections cause great damage and disorder in transactions with contractors and state.
Ø We consider very important to develop and adopt a single normative act that will contain a comprehensive list of kinds of violations and the amounts of sanctions. Otherwise, the situation with imposing sanctions is of chaotic character: sanitary control stations, fire inspections, ecologic institutions, taxation organs, customs organs, police, currency control organs, registration organs, having different normative acts, apply them free enough that causes numerous repeated punishment for one and the same violation by different organs of authority. The size of fines should be correspondent to the size of damage caused to the society or the level of danger of a violation.
V. Registration and liquidation
The process of registration and liquidation of a commercial organization in Belarus is extremely complicated, expensive and overdriven with different requirements. One will need to visit 10 public institutions and collect 13 document packages. To accomplish his constitutional right for labor a citizen has to pay $746 (juridical person) or $102 (individual entrepreneur) only at a registration stage. The main expense item at registration stage is the payment for notary services. It falls to its share around 4/5 of all the expenses. These services are very expensive, economically unreasonable even though they are set by the state.
Conservation of permitting disposition of the registration procedure leads to ‛mortification“ of human and resource capital. People and commercial organizations cannot use the resources and assets they own. To pass the pre-registration period, registration and the post-registration period procedures (get registered) is hardly possible for many even advantaged people. People get problems connected with the presence of numerable sending forms, absence of a common system of registering locally. Even when attracting lawyers does not always help to reduce the terms of passing the registration procedure. One-shop principle which is declared to day by many state bodies is an example of substitution of concepts. Instead of the real simplification of the procedure and reducing the expenses there has happened a geographical dislocation of some state structures.
Accounting in different state bodies after registration is similar process. For the term violation one can get a $35-$1700 fine. Many tax administrations have turned a simple technical procedure to a difficult ritual which is held at the registration Committee sitting.
Liquidation or closing-up business is an unreasonably complicated, long and expensive procedure. In Belarus it takes at average 5.8 years. It comes to 22% of the asset account. After liquidation owners get back only 22 cents out of 1 dollar. This is one of the worst rates in the world. Presence of such a procedure blocks creative initiative and development of a valuable labor market.
We believe that a good partnership of business and the authorities would appear in legislative form of the next issues:
Ø transition to the informative registration principle;
Ø realization of ‛one-shop“ registration principle with minimum of necessary documents, quickly, without any formalities;
Ø abolition of the requirement to include names of kinds of activity to the list of constituent documents – return to the common legal capacity of commerce organisations;
Ø abolition of the norm to form the statutory fund of commerce organizations (except JSCs) before state registration;
Ø transition to the voluntary disposition of the notarial document attestation procedure when registering;
Ø abolition of responsibility of founders (new participants of commerce organization) to attend a registration organ in the process of registration;
Ø liberation of investors from responsibility to expertise the authenticity of non-money deposition to the statutory fund of an enterprise if the deposition is less than 100 base units;
Ø to grant the liquidated enterprises the right to sell their property to the definite buyers but not only on auctions if the value of the property is less than 100 base units;
Ø abolition of limitation on doing commercial activity for a person whose commercial organization is passing through the procedure of bankruptcy or liquidation;
Ø to foresee the right of any (incl. liquidated ) organization to send documents into state organ for storage in electronic kind;
Ø to reduce the obligatory accountability for liquidated enterprises.
VI. Access to information and openness of the authorities
The legislative data which controls commercial activity has dozens of thousands of documents. They are taken by hundreds structures of the public management. To implement all the requirements of the legislation, a entrepreneur has to know around 5000 of basic documents. Regulations, directions and instructions which determine important parameters of commercial activity are often inaccessible. They are not published in the press. It is impossible to find them on web-sites or even in specialized periodical editions.
Search the necessary information on implementation requirements of the authorities to the business takes much time. Entrepreneurs are lacking the information on public contracts and tenders, on the regime of commercial activity of state enterprises, and on the possibility of obtaining a credit. It is even harder to obtain any information from abroad. International organizations, transnational corporations conduct competitions on placement productions or concrete orders. Small- and medium-sized business almost does not feel any use from the marketing activity of the authorities. Development of marketing service by business associations and by the Chamber of Commerce and Industry is not stimulated by the tax code.
The integration level of Belarus even in the regional labor system is still very low. As the result the expenses of profit losses are growing. Profitable niches at the Belarusian market are taken by the foreign competitors. Lobbying of some enterprises and sectors is growing. They require taking additional protective measures. As the result of development of new enterprises and sectors our country conserves the old structure of production and employment. Instead of support of perspective commercial projects the budget and administrative resources are spent for unprofitable organizations. There is discrimination of small- and medium-sized business. The production is situated not in the places where it could give an efficient output for shareholders, investors and the state. The regime of secrecy which is used by the state authorities, enterprises and banks facilitates to development of bribery and corruption.
We believe that a good partnership of business and the authorities would appear in legislative form of the next issues:
Ø introduction of a legislative regulation on the obligatory publication of all the standard acts of all the state bodies of different levels on web-sites, in mass media within 2 days after subscription, except documents which are ‛top secret“;
Ø introduction of an obligatory regulation of accommodation of law-projects, decrees, directions and other standard acts with representatives of the business community, associations of entrepreneurs and employers, councils of entrepreneurs;
Ø a free access to the data about state registration of commercial and non-commercial organizations, to the data of taxpayer account number appropriation, to the data of license delivery;
Ø State financial support of sites, issue of specialized bulletins with marketing information, about competitions, tenders and financing small and medium enterprises, organizations and agencies;
Ø introduction of a legislative regulation on publication balances of all the state bodies, including budget implementation if its not a state secret;
Ø introduction of obligatory annual audit of all the state structures and publication the results in mass media (newspapers, journals or web-sites) within 1 month after check termination;
Ø introduction of a legislative regulation on obligations of a joint-stock company management to inform minor shareholders about management deals which might hide their personal interests;
Ø creation and broadcasting of information and analytical radio and TV programs that widely highlight the actual issues of support and development of small and medium entrepreneurs in the republic;
Ø preparation, publication and distribution (with finance support by the state) of statistic and forecast information about development of small and medium entrepreneurship in the Republic of Belarus (bulletins, CDs, reference books; data bases of the main sources of raw materials, energy-carrier, the medium salary, the cost of credit resources and others);
Ø introduction of a regulation on obligatory presentation of information about all public purchases and orders to the citizens and mass media by the state bodies including local executive committees, ministries and departments;
Ø legislative execution of regulation on placement public orders of state enterprises and organizations at small enterprises(not less than 15%)
Ø Simplification of the system of registration of the media in the country, creation of information resources of enterprises and organizations.
Mechanisms and tools of advocacy in Belarus
Agenda is a road map for development of Belarusian business community activity. Associations of entrepreneurs and employers, republican and local associations, industrial groups, Councils of entrepreneurs take specific plans on achievement the solution to the problems put by the Agenda.
For the Agenda implementation there will be used the following mechanisms and tools:
Ø preparation of lawdrafts, amendments to the existing laws and regulations, their presentation to the public authorities;
Ø participation in consultations with the public authorities, setting nets with the members of the Parliament, Government and special ministries and departments;
Ø adjustment of business community position by means of consultations, round tables, surveys and so on.;
Ø focus-grouping of analytical or other expert formations for the research of industrialists` and entrepreneurs` opinions on legislative proposals of the business community;
Ø presentation of business community position in the legislative bodies by means of hearings on the problems of entrepreneurship on the whole and specific problems of the economic policy;
Ø arrangement of permanent regional discussion forum for small- and medium-sized business and entrepreneurship, monitoring of the situation in SMB and partnership condition between business and the authorities, arrangement of the feedback of entrepreneurs and their associations;
Ø holding of anticorruption actions, positioning the business community as the enemy of bribes or other phenomena which supply the corruption;
Ø examining legislative acts for anticorruption;
Ø support of entrepreneurs in judicial contests with the public authorities and controlling bodies;
Ø holding a campaign in mass media on support of legislative initiatives of business community in the aim of obtaining social consensus;
Ø creation of a special Committee on coordination of business community activity on advocacy of SMB. It can be formed of representatives of business associations, Unions and other associations of entrepreneurs;
Ø broad propagation of informational resources, distribution materials on advocacy on web-sites and informational portals;
Ø partnership development of all existing public associations of entrepreneurs, Councils of entrepreneurs under the authority bodies, industrial and regional business associations on the issues of realization of the Agenda ideas.
Business community of Belarus is open for creation of a valuable partnership with the authorities. It will be favorable for our country, consumers are waiting for it. Our partnership will be a convincing proof of Belarusian business climate attraction.
The criteria of the partnership are determined. The tasks are set. The forms of cooperation are clear. The real partnership will appear only when all the industrialists and entrepreneurs of the country will participate in its creation and consolidation, when we all will believe that what we are doing is right, that the country of millions of private owners is the future of our country.
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