Belarusian PM estimates investment of industrial park's residents with Chinese participation at almost $1 bln

MINSK. May 20 (Interfax) - Investment made by residents of the Veliky Kamen Industrial Park is close to $1 billion, Belarusian Prime Minister Roman Golovchenko said.

"At the first stage, it was important to advertise the park, to make it recognizable, to attract as many residents and investment from them as possible, which, by the way, is already nearing $1 billion," the prime minister said during a visit to the park on Saturday.

"The state invested only some 4% of the total funds here. This investment has already paid off many times. The park has returned three times more to the country's budget than we spent through tax payments alone," Golovchenko was quoted as saying by the government's press service.

The Veliky Kamen Industrial Park was created under an intergovernmental agreement between China and Belarus 25 kilometers from Minsk for high-tech companies. The park is located near Minsk Airport, in the center of Belarus. The Moscow-Berlin motorway (M1/E30) leading to Russia and Central Europe runs through it.

A special legal regime has been introduced on an area of 112.5 square kilometers for 50 years. The park also has the status of a territorial special economic zone in the Eurasian Economic Union. The priority areas for the park are engineering, electronics and telecommunications, biotechnology, pharmaceuticals, new materials, logistics, e-commerce, and big data storage and processing.