NEWS .

BELARUS: SUPPORT FOR SMALL AND MEDIUM BUSINESSES WILL BE ANCHORED IN LAW

Steps directed towards supporting small and medium businesses will be included in the state law. A law proposal titled “Support of small and medium size entrepreneurship” was debated on November 5th on the floor of Belarus Parliament.

According to Belarus Deputy economics Minster Andrei Tur, the new law proposal is directed towards systematization of measures and directives, and is enriched by the experience gained during the latest economic developments.

In particular, the law introduces clear criteria of classification of businesses as being small or medium size. Registered individual proprietors, micro-organizations, commercial structures with average annual staff count below 15, as well as small organizations - commercial structures with average annual headcount between 16 and 100, will all be considered small businesses.

Medium size businesses, on the other hand, are commercial organizations with average annual headcount between 101 and 250 persons.

The necessity of classifying organizations that employ between 101 and 250 persons as medium size businesses is dictated by the substantial need of such enterprises (numbered over 3000) in coordinated assistance. While the majority of these organizations are active in the real sector of the economy, their revenue per employee is 5.5 times lower than the same figure for enterprises employing below 15 individuals, and in 2.3 times lower compared to small organizations. The Ministry of Economics is convinced that these businesses have to be supported through assistance in realization of their expenditure projects, widened access to subsidized credit base, increase of export potential alongside other measures.

Anchoring these policies in law would allow for targeted support of small and medium businesses. It would also enlarge the contribution of such businesses to the overall economy.

Also, the law specifies government goals and the targets in the sphere of small and medium sized entrepreneurship, as well as pronounces the main types of such support measures. The law mentions the possibility of reduced rate taxation and simplified bookkeeping. The law also mentions the possibility of setting a 10% minimum of government spending to be directed towards small and medium businesses.

It is expected that after a parliament approval the law will go in effect on July 1st 2010.