27 November 2012

Hi-Tech Park delegation, headed by Deputy Director of HTP Administration Alexander Martinkevich, participated in Belarus-Dutch business forum “20 years of economic partnership: key achievements and prospects” that took place on November 22, 2012 in the Hague (the Netherlands).

The main goals of the forum were not just to summarize the 20 years’ period of trade and economic relationships, but also to establish new direct contacts between Belarus and Dutch companies and to promote investment partnership, especially those in IT sphere.

In her speech Elena Gritsenko, Ambassador Extraordinary & Plenipotentiary of the Republic of Belarus to The Kingdom of the Netherlands, presented investment potential of Belarus, speaking about the work Belarusian government does to create favorable environment for business development.

Elena Gritsenko:

“The Belarusian Government is one of the biggest catalysts for driving the development of IT sphere and has shown its commitment by setting Hi-Tech Park. Governmental support in Belarus provides the best business environment for IT industry in Europe”.

Deputy Director of HTP Administration Alexander Martinkevich spoke in more detail about the opportunities that legal regime of HTP provides at the section “Investment, energetic and information technologies” that was a part of Belarus-Dutch business forum.

Alexander Martinkevich:

“Providing special business environment for IT-business, today Hi-Tech Park is one of the leaders among innovative IT clusters in Central and Eastern Europe. It includes 118 IT-companies with more than 13 500 software engineers who have been engaged in high-end software development and IT-services provided for customers in more than 55 countries of the world. HTP attractiveness for IT companies is based not on the tax benefits, but on the expertise, innovation and highly qualified human resources with profound knowledge in mathematics, engineering, physics, and other sciences”.

Today more than a half of HTP residents are companies with foreign investments, 7 of them are established with the help of Dutch capital. However, HTP Administration Deputy Director is assured that HTP potential is far from being exhausted.

In the course of the forum HTP delegation exchanged contacts with potential customers from the Netherlands and presented opportunities of custom programming in Belarus.

HTP delegation consisted of representatives of HTP resident-companies, namely Ozone Consulting, SaM Solutions and Softeq Development.

According to the Ministry of International Affairs of the Republic of Belarus, about 200 representatives of Belarusian and Dutch companies, banks, chambers of commerce, governmental enterprises, local authorities and educational establishments participated in the Forum.

It was organized by the Embassy of the Republic of Belarus in the Netherlands together with Minsk department of Belarusian Chamber of Commerce and the Netherlands Council for trade Promotion.