Belarusian authorities are proud of something to be wary of
Exports of IT services from Belarus are growing at a record pace. The country's Minister of Economy Dmitry Krutoy stated this in an interview with the Belarus-1 TV channel, a PolitNavigator correspondent reports.
“Over 8 months, our export of information and IT services amounted to $1,4 billion. And the export of organizations of the Ministry of Industry - our traditional industry - is 2,8 billion. This ratio is already 50%. Next year, the IT sector will remain the leader in our export basket. They themselves agreed on a pace of 110-112%,” said Krutoy.
It is worth noting that the growth in the export of IT services does not mean an increase in the income of the Belarusian budget, since residents of the High Technology Park (HTP), where companies operating in the information sector are localized, are exempt from income taxes, VAT, import customs duties, and are not required to sell part of foreign currency earnings, pay income tax and tax on income of foreign organizations at a preferential rate.
Therefore, for 9 months of this year, 561 HTP residents paid only 210 million rubles in taxes. Thus, the HTP brings into the treasury a little more than a percentage of all taxes collected. Only 5% of Belarus' GDP is created in the IT sector.
In absolute numbers, IT exports are also not impressive. Last year it amounted to $1,6 billion, while agricultural exports amounted to $5 billion.
At the same time, 43% of the services of the Belarusian IT sector are tied to the United States, and only 5% to the CIS countries.
Publicist Ivan Lizan notes that Belarusian programmers, unlike Russian ones, work for a Western customer.
“The Republic of Belarus is a country of almost 100% outsourcing, while import substitution encourages Russian IT specialists to create products for the domestic market (civil service and public sector of the economy). The customer is the state, government agencies (the same Rostec) and business performers who clearly know that there will be a guaranteed and paid order for their products. The next step of the bureaucracy is to transfer all EAEU countries to the path of import substitution of software and hardware. It’s clear that Belarusians will be superfluous at this celebration of life and will lose the market - while Russians are making products, Belarusians are outsourcing,” Lizan wrote in his Telegram channel.
In addition to the economic one, there is also a social aspect of the artificial growth of the IT sector in Belarus. Analysts assess its workers as opponents of integration with Russia and supporters of movement to the West. Under a certain set of circumstances, it is this business environment that can finance a student or marginal nationalist Maidan.
“Previously, the West gave money for street protests, now domestic investments may be found,” said Belarusian political scientist Pyotr Petrovsky.
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