Belarus’ agro-towns should become self-sufficient economic agents, Sergei Sidorsky says

Belarusian agro-towns should become self-sufficient economic agents, Prime Minister of Belarus Sergei Sidorsky said at a session of the Presidium of the Council of Ministers on March 17. The session focused on the implementation of the village revival programme for 2005-2010, BelTA informs.

The Prime Minister stressed that apart from a well-developed social area agro-towns should focus on the creation of the appropriate production and technical base. “Alongside the construction of dwelling and other social objects, production and processing should be developed in the agro-towns,” Sergei Sidorsky said. “Today we cannot overlook this main issue and focus on the development of the social sphere alone,” he added.

The Prime Minister said that the production and technical base in the agro-towns should meet the parameters specified by the government. “According to the designs there is a standard engine yard, standard farm, approach roads. The agro-towns should be all like this,” he emphasized. As soon as all Belarusian agro-towns (the total of them reaches 1,500) will meet these standards, we will be able to talk about their full and real payback, Sergei Sidorsky believes.

According to Agriculture and Food Minister Semyon Shapiro, every agro-town has its development plan that provides creation of necessary production base including farms and other objects. He acknowledged that earlier less attention had been paid to the development of the production base in agro-towns. Thus, only 200 standard engine yards were built in 937 agro-towns set up in 2005-2008. This activity will be intensified.

Semyon Shapiro informed that 251 Belarusian settlements would be transformed into agro-towns in 2009. Their upgrading, technical equipping will need about Br628 billion. Social infrastructure will claim Br609 billion.