Lukashenko: it's time to remove unnecessary nuances in HTP functioning
The President of Belarus has met today with the Hi-Tech Park’s Director, Vsevolod Yanchevsky, to discuss the prospects for HTP development
In the beginning of the meeting, Aleksandr Lukashenko stressed that time has come to consider the issue of the Hi-Tech Park functioning, “Not actually from the economic point of view, but probably from some kind of moral and maybe political one. Openly speaking, if we recall the year 2020 and the rebellion that was imposed on our people, then the HTP employees showed themselves not from the best side – to put it mildly. Naturally, there is a certain wariness in this regard in the society, and that is what I mean when saying that time has come to remove some unnecessary nuances with the HTP functioning.”
At the same time, the Head of State noted that the HTP employees and those, in general, who were engaged in high technologies are not to blame for everything. “This is partly our omission, or – most likely – this is an inevitable stage that we experienced. The Hi-Tech Park and the companies that were registered there – which were actually subsidiaries – had their owners outside Belarus. We registered and received information on the eve of that rebellion that HTP employees would be involved as a driving force. Again – and I confess this now – neither I nor the special services paid due attention to that. We simply waved [that information] aside. I thought it impossible that our children would start a war against us. We paid heavy price for that. It turned out that even such children can fight against their parents if they are well paid. That is, our people (it must also be frankly admitted) – who worked at the Hi-Tech Park and received decent incomes compared to the average salary in Belarus – came down to side of big money and performed the commands of their foreign masters, who were mostly located overseas. I may be wrong about something, but these are probably only details. We analysed the situation from these positions and came to this conclusion,” he said.
With this in view, as the President added, it is necessary to take into account the fact that those people were actually managed by others, “Since they were mostly young people, and the HTP leadership worked there carelessly – not knowing their employees and not counteracting all such negative trends in time.”
However, Aleksandr Lukashenko stressed that it would be wrong to refuse the HTP and not to support it. “Although I often talk about it, thanks to the HTP work, we have our own ‘high-tech parks’ at each enterprise, including at the National Academy of Sciences, MAZ, BelAZ and others. Initially, I also failed to believe that we have very strong IT specialists at every enterprise who do not just work for their overseas heads but create the final product, or – as we fought for – food companies, and so on. These have been created. When we inspected BELAZ, for example, we saw a four- or five-storey building, roughly speaking, where young people work, create software and final products. In other words, the Hi-Tech Park has played a very important role here, I think,” the President concluded.
