Belarus will work towards the top 40 countries by the human development index by 2030, Belarusian Prime Minister Mikhail Myasnikovich said during the roundtable which considered the draft national sustainable development strategy by 2030.
"The main challenge during this period is to reach the top 40 countries by the level of human development. We definitely can do this. Relevant approaches have already been developed,” the head of government said.
However, there is still a lot of work to do. For example, the objectives and approaches of the strategy need to be explored. "Such a document as a long-term development strategy should be accurate. If it does not take into account the particularities of the present state of the economy, the capacity of our country, we will inevitably stumble on some things that we will try to address by means of five-year programs, or, even worse, by one-year action plans,” said Mikhail Myasnikovich. The head of government asked to proceed with the draft strategy very carefully. The final document needs to ensure a balanced operation of all economic sectors and all types of activities.
The strategy will take into account the fact that starting from 1 January 2015 Belarus will live in the new economic reality (the Eurasian Economic Union). Global trends should be taken into account as well, said the Prime Minister. "According to all kinds of forecasts, the next 15 years will be difficult for the world economy," he said. Today we already see the overproduction of a whole range of commodities on world markets; there are environmental and energy problems and challenges, Mikhail Myasnikovich said.
"Major changes are expected on our domestic energy market in connection with the commissioning of the nuclear power plant. Therefore the tariff policy, tariff policy forecasts will largely determine the development of the real production sector of the economy,” said Mikhail Myasnikovich.
When speaking about the most urgent issues which should be reflected in the long-term development strategy, the Prime Minister, in particular, asked its drafters to pay serious attention to the structure of the domestic economy. Processing industry should hold not less than 25% of the total economy. In the long term the construction industry and the energy sector of the country should increase their shares.
"A very serious challenge is to reduce the differences between regions and Minsk in the production of gross regional product per employee in economy," continued Mikhail Myasnikovich. Today the gap between the levels of GDP per employed person is 1.4 times. By 2030, the aim is to reduce this figure to 1.1 times.
The head of government paid attention to innovative development. “Today these issues are off radar a bit; there are certain drawbacks,” he stated. "We talk a lot about innovative development. However, the modernization we are currently busy with has put the issues of innovative development on the backburner. The government believes that all new construction and modernization projects must be innovative. Unfortunately not all projects are based on advanced technologies," he said.
The director of the research economy institute of the Economy Ministry of Belarus Alexander Chervyakov reported earlier, that the national sustainable development strategy by 2030 will be ready by the end of 2014.
Written by belta.by
