MINSK, 17 June (BelTA) – Belarusian Economy Minister Yuri Chebotar has made a few comments to reporters about Belarus’ robotization development vectors stipulated by the presidential decree “On stimulating robotization”, BelTA has learned.
One of the priorities of the social and economic development of Belarus until 2030 is to increase the competitive ability and increase technological self-sufficiency, Yuri Chebotar recalled. “Robotization is one of the tasks stipulated by the program on social and economic development. Therefore, our task is to create the appropriate conditions for increasing the number of robots in the real sector of the economy,” he emphasized.
The minister added that the efforts would focus on two areas in Belarus. “First, all our line ministries have developed and approved development programs for the five-year period until 2030 where they stipulated appropriate robotization indicators both for the industries as a whole and for specific leading enterprises. Thus, we have an understanding in the medium term where robots will be installed, increasing competitiveness and labor productivity,” the minister said.
The second area is creating institutional conditions to make this process advance thanks to stimulating measures on the part of the state. “It is exactly for this purpose that the president has signed the corresponding decree,” Yuri Chebotar said.
The decree also implies several vectors for developing the robotics sector in Belarus. The economy minister outlined the first one: support for the adoption of robots, in other words, support for their consumers. “This is our real sector. Appropriate incentives are provided for them: an increased investment deduction, the ability to increase depreciation with a 1.5 coefficient (thereby reducing their tax burden) as well as full deduction of the VAT,” he said.
The second area focuses on those who decide to produce robots in Belarus. “First of all, this is the ability to import and exempt from VAT the parts needed to make robots. It will allow creating competencies for the assembly and production of robots initially and moving on to robot production localization later on,” the official pointed out.
And the third, very important area is support for robotization engineering. “Experts note that hardware makes at most 40% of a robot while everything else is knowledge and competencies of programmers. Therefore, an important direction stipulated by the decree is support for robotization engineering. For this purpose appropriate powers have been given to our main, leading development institution – the Hi-Tech Park. This includes the ability to provide consulting services within the framework of robotization and, among other things, to lease out robots to our industrial enterprises,” he noted.
The combination of these things represents the three main areas of the new document. “It was a direct request from our real sector. We have implemented it and are confident that within the framework of medium-term robotization plans it will produce the corresponding effect and will ensure the implementation of the social and economic development program,” Yuri Chebotar concluded.
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