OREANDA-NEWS  On 19 February was announced, that Belorussian President visits JSC Babushkina Krynka in Mogilev.

Given today’s financial and economic situation, there is a need for taking prompt radical measures to empower the national milk processing industry to expand its exports, said President of the Republic of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko on 17 February while visiting the joint-stock company ‘Babushkina Krynka’ in Mogilev.

Babushkina Krynka processes around 40 per cent of all milk in the Mogilev Region. This joint-stock company has been certified to the STB ISO 9001-2001 standard and the HACCP, has been entitled to mark its main products with the sign ‘Natural Product’. In 2008 the company won a prize of the Belarusian Government for implementing highly effective quality control methods and producing very high-quality food.

In 2008 a total of capital investment at Babushkina Krynka was Br10.7 thousand million, including Br5.4 thousand million of company’s own funds. Babushkina Krynka implemented three investment projects: reconstruction of the cheese-making plant at its affiliate company ‘Belynichsky’, upgrade of its parent enterprise in order to expand the range of products and improve their quality by using, among other things, resource-saving technologies, and create a buttermilk-drying facility.

Babushkina Krynka sells most of its dairy products domestically. To boost exports, the company has created its dealer network in Moscow and Moscow Region, in Bryansk and Bryansk Region.

Alexander Lukashenko got familiar with the production, economic and social situation at the company, its marketing policy, progress in upgrading the technologies employed, and with the company’s growth prospects, in particular plans to increase the production of new high-quality goods and expand into new markets.

The President visited the company’s production shops, examined some of its products. The Head of State praised the company’s purposeful work towards expanding its output, developing new products and searching for new markets.

Alexander Lukashenko pointed to the need for drawing on the experience of advanced companies and putting it to practical use at Babushkina Krynka. He tasked the company’s administration to complete, within the shortest possible time, the zoning of the resource base (identify the areas and agricultural companies providing agricultural products for further processing at Babushkina Krynka) for the companies of the dairy and meat processing industry.

The President emphasised the need for creating Belarusian manufacturing companies, or ‘pivots’, abroad, which would help explore and penetrate into new markets.

Revisiting the issue of privatisation of Belarusian companies, the Head of State emphasised that this process would not be simplified.

Nearly all companies have been privatised in Belarus by now. If one wishes to privatise a company, he needs to have an approval to do so from the company’s workers, company’s top management, local authorities, Government and the President.

‘This process is over-bureaucratised and will not be de-bureaucratised any time soon. It will not be allowed to take decisions on the selling of property single-handedly. One should go all the way from the collective of workers up to the President in order to privatise a company’, said the Head of State.

Alexander Lukashenko said that the procedure for privatising Belarusian companies had been made public long ago. Everyone knows the terms. ‘Privatisation takes place if the twenty-five conditions that I once announced are fulfilled. The main of them are price, modernisation, protection of jobs, social programmes’, said the President. ‘No piece of land in Belarus will be sold for mere song’, he added.

The President said the Belarusian government was doing everything possible to cross the barriers hindering Belarus’ international trade.

‘We are looking for and finding new markets. These are Ukraine, Kazakhstan, and more far-away countries – Iran, Venezuela’, said the Head of State.

As the President reminded those present, the G-20 summit in Washington approved as a key decision the idea to reject protectionist measures. ‘Big economies should not block products coming from other countries like, say, Belarus in their markets’, said Alexander Lukashenko.

‘You see what happens in reality. Even with respect to a country which is so dear to us – Russia – we have disputes, and whatever meeting we have we always touch upon this issue. Even before the crisis, and the more so during the crisis, there was not freedom of movement of goods. And it should be done’, said the President.

The President stressed that he was a supporter of sincere honest policy.

The Head of State said Belarus was making concrete steps and was prepared to develop further, in keeping with its interests, its relations with the West. ‘It is liberalisation and privatisation – open and transparent. It is that we have a really normal society, stable both religiously and ethnically. No other country is as comfortable for living as Belarus! The mere fact that you and your children can take a safe walk at night is worth a lot! It is also that we counter the drugs traffic that is flowing in their direction, illegal migration, arms traffic (how much of it we stop here!), nuclear materials…I am not speaking about economy here – transit and so on. It is important to Europe, so let us face it!’ said the President.