“The Evening Brest” newspaper published the article “Agenda for Business”. Jornalist Yury Rubashevsky prepared the article on the results of the business meeting of directors aimed at discussion of actual issues of non-governmental sector of the Belarusian economy. The initiator and organisator of the event is MCAEE partner in creation of “Confederation of Belarusian Entrepreneurship” – “Association of Brest Region Entrepreneurs”.
AGENDA FOR BUSINESS is being developed with assistance of Brest entrepreneurs
“We are not only competitors but also partners. And only together we can settle the issues that private business face in Belarus” – this is a motto of a meeting of heads of non-governmental enterprises held by “Association of Brest Region Entrepreneurs” on Friday. The participants included entrepreneurs, representatives of banks, guests from Minsk and Moscow, the General Council of the Russian Federation in Brest Mr. Alexandr Vahrushev. The main aim of the meeting was discussion of important problems of non-governmental sector of the Belarusian economy in informal atmosphere.
Officially the Association of entrepreneurs was established on November, 20, 1991 but it was decided to celebrate the 15th anniversary in the next February. The Association head Mr. Nikolay Demyanchuk confined himself to several figures “on the occasion”. So, six years ago, when he became the head of the Association there were just more than 10 real members, the others were on the list formally. Nowadays the Association accounts almost 400 representatives of Brest business. More over many others cooperate with the Association not being its members officially.
Several reports set the common pitch of the talk. A brief speech of the president of “Minsk Capital Association of Entrepreneurs and Employers” Mr. Vladimir Karyagin called attention by a message about development of the National Business Agenda of Belarus. As Mr. Karyagin underlined, Brest Association of Entrepreneurs has made an important contribution to the development. In general over 20.000 persons employed in private business were interviewed for preparation of the Agenda. It is also important that the project has been developed in cooperation with the governmental structures. Its main sections are related to the issues of taxation, openness of the state for business, procedures of registration of enterprises and individual entrepreneurs. The Agenda has been already presented in Moscow, Paris and Brussels, where it was highly appreciated. Now, according to one of the first Belarusian entrepreneur, (as Mr. Karyagin said, he has been working in this sphere for 21 years already), this document is being examined by the authorities of the country. And, as Mr. Karyagin supposes, the creation of Belarusian entrepreneurs has all chances to become the base of relations between the authority and business.
Mr. Yaroslav Romanchuk, an independent economist who publishes his analytical materials in media, said about the problems that need settlement in this sphere. In his results he is guided by the official data of statistic organs of different countries. Unfortunately, Belarus does not occupy the leading positions, compared with the nearest neighbours.
Let`s examine one of the indicators – the volume of export of goods per one inhabitant of a country (the role of non-governmental sector of the economy in this sphere is especially important). According to Mr. Yaroslav Romanchuk, this indicator for Belarus totaled $1599 per person. According to this indicator, we are two times higher than Ukraine, but – attention! – in Poland this indicator totaled $2341 and in Lithuania – almost $4000.
“There is a very difficult situation if the taxation system. There are more than 125 kinds of payments from legal entities in Belarus and if we apply them in full, an enterprise would pay... 186 % of profit. It is no doubt that not all the enterprises pay all the taxes and duties but it is difficult to understand all the documents. More over that apply less payments using the same approach. For example, there are only 44 payments in China (in Lithuania – only 8) that can bring no more than 49 % of an enterprise’s profit.
The participants discussed the proposals of the chairman of PR Commission of the Free Economic Society of Moscow Mr. Valdimir Butyryov. The Society was established by Ekaterina II and re-created on the initiative of Mr. Yury Luzhkov in 2004 and works within the mayor’s administration. The guest did not go into history details but said that cooperation between small business of Moscow and Brest began to revive, he thinks. And he immediately said about those positions that can be interested for Brest people. Due to future entrance of Russia to the WTO, Muscovites are ready to assist in goods certification (it is well known that the Western neighbours are the main consumers of our export). The Free Economic Society is also ready to assist in development of economic relations with Chinese businessmen in the sphere of business secrets security and other issues. As Vladimir Butyryov noted, it is supposed to do all the initial contacts directly through “Association of Brest Region Entrepreneurs”.
In the end of the sitting Vladimir Vlasyuk, director of “SouzBrestService” (within “Association of Brest Region Entrepreneurs”) said about the discount system for members of the Association. Its essence is simple: the Association members offer discounts for their goods and services to their colleagues. It can be one of the factors of the Association expansion. At the same time the sitting participants said in the single voice that the main argument for entering the Association is not immediately profits (although they can not be ignored) but a possibility to protect their interests within the current legislation.
