«Industry is the main foundation of economic stability and technological sovereignty for any state. Our industrial potential is growing at an accelerated pace and is capable of being a locomotive for Eurasian industrial cooperation. Each of us has our own strengths and high competencies in one area or another. The priority task is to skillfully combine them, turning this potential into joint products, technologies, and new markets,» Aleksandr Turchin said.
The first proposal to achieve these goals is to reboot the approach to industrial cooperation. «Belarus sees significant potential for joint work in mechanical engineering, components and equipment manufacturing, microelectronics, the chemical industry, pharmaceuticals, biotechnology, new materials, and information technologies. However, the main criterion for the effectiveness of our work should not be a list of areas, but the emergence of real joint projects and products that are competitive both on the EAEU market and on external markets,» the prime minister noted.
The first steps toward this have been taken in the EAEU — a pilot mechanism for financing joint cooperative projects has been in operation for the third year. «At the same time, its weaknesses have been identified in practice: the administrative burden and lengthy project selection procedures by the EEC reduce the mechanism’s attractiveness for medium-sized businesses. There are also questions about the projects themselves, such as the lack of an innovative component and duplicate production facilities. Any project should start not with looking for a formal number of participants, but with a specific economic task: who will consume the products, what competencies are required, where production will be organized, and what the final market will be. I believe that approaches to the financing mechanism for all or specific groups of cooperative projects can be improved without waiting for the pilot project to end. Moreover, the EAEU’s budget has the funds for this,» the Belarusian prime minister pointed out.
The second proposal is to establish a pipeline from a scientific idea to mass production. As Aleksandr Turchin emphasized, manufacturing complex products requires not only production capacities, but also engineering solutions, software, advanced materials, and a testing base. Today, the EAEU has scientific organizations, engineering schools, industrial enterprises, and financial instruments. However, a gap still exists between development and industrial implementation.
«Eurasian technological platforms should not be a venue for discussions, but a mechanism for preparing a concrete product. The result could be a prototype, a new technology, an industrial order, or a finished production chain,» the prime minister added.
His proposals also include making artificial intelligence a tool for productivity growth and transforming transport corridors into digital production and logistics chains. The final point is the protection of the EAEU domestic market.
«Today, a new type of integration is needed — an integration where science knows the needs of industry, financing follows a promising product, digital technologies increase productivity, and logistics and the common market ensure scaling. In terms of its potential, the EAEU is ready to implement such a large-scale task. All that is needed is our single, firm will to follow this path,» the head of the Belarusian government emphasized.
He expressed gratitude to the heads of government of the EAEU countries for supporting the proposal to hold the Eurasian Intergovernmental Council meeting in Minsk at the same time as the events of the INNOPROM. Belarus international industrial expo. «The expo is becoming a new platform for developing strategic areas of industrial development within the Eurasian space. It is no coincidence that these days we are paying so much attention to this particular issue,» Aleksandr Turchin noted.
