BEIJING, June 29 (Xinhua) -- This year marks the 10th anniversary of the China-proposed Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). Belarus, as an important transit hub on the Silk Road Economic Belt, was one of the first countries to support the initiative and participate in Belt and Road cooperation.
Being described as "a pearl along the Silk Road Economic Belt", the Great Stone China-Belarus Industrial Park (Great Stone), is the largest project to attract investment in Belarus and a landmark cooperation project within the Belt and Road framework.
With projectd evelopment and construction forging ahead, Great Stone industrial park has become a hot spot for attracting foreign investment in Belarus, and is further stepping up development in terms of industry clustering and digital transformation.
International industry hub taking shape
Photo taken on Oct. 19, 2021 shows the "Great Stone", a Chinese-Belarusian industrial park 25 km away from Minsk, capital of Belarus. (Industrial Park Development Company CJSC/Handout via Xinhua)
By the end of 2019, Phase I infrastructure construction of the Great Stone was fully completed, including 30 kilometers of roads, 313 kilometers of supporting pipelines, and 5 rainwater and sewage treatment stations, covering 8.55 square kilometers in total. In 2019, the first apartment building in the park was officially put into use, and service facilities such as banks, hotels, catering, and transportation were gradually in place, followed by the R&D LIEHTP. Phase II infrastructures kicked off construction in 2020.
"The Great Stone industrial park enjoys advantageous location," said Li Zhonghan, general manager of Great Stone Industrial Park development company, noting that the park is only 25 km from the capital city Minsk and is close to Minsk National Airport. Belarus is an important hub on the Silk Road Economic Belt connecting Europe and Asia, boasting sound legal system, high government integrity and reputable social safety that provides the environment for the industrial park and its settled companies for healthy development.
Planning five phases in total, Great Stone eyes to develop itself into Minsk satellite industrial city with a population of over 20,000. The park is now in its second five-year development period (2021-2025) focusing on nine industries such as 5G, unmanned vehicle and new material.
Tangible benefits starting to flow
Farming machines are displayed at an international agricultural exhibition in the Great Stone China-Belarus Industrial Park in Minsk, Belarus, June 6, 2023. The exhibition opened here on Tuesday. (Photo by Henadz Zhinkov/Xinhua)
In 2022, the total industrial output value of the park's resident companies increased by 53.3 percent year-on-year, reaching 456.1 million Belarusian rubles, and the sales revenue of goods, projects and services jumped 90.1 percent year-on-year to 709.3 million Belarusian rubles, of which sales revenue to places out of Belarus increased by 45.8 percent year-on-year.
Net profit of the enterprises of the industrial park totals 34.1 million Belarusian rubles in 2022, up by 144 percent from the previous year, according to the National Statistical Committee of Belarus. Taxes and fees paid by resident companies shot 123.6 percent to 80.4 million Belarusian rubles during the period.
It is noted that Great Stone had its 100th resident registered in December of 2022. Eight more companies settled in the park this year by May.
The park has gathered a large number of industry-leading projects, such as China-Belarus Business Logistics Park of China Merchants Group, Torch Park Project of China National Machinery Industry Corporation (SINOMACH), and industry leaders such as Zoomlion, Shaanxi Fast Auto Drive Group Co., Ltd. (Fast) and Interpublic Group of Companies (IPG).
The park's sound operation has also attracted well-known international companies, such as American Laser Technology Inc., Swiss Hess, etc., to settle in the park. High-tech companies from industries such as high-end manufacturing, bio-medicine, big data, information technology, etc., also gathered here. The park has become a hot spot for Belarus to attract foreign investment.
Digital transformation and cooperation underway
Adding on industry clustering, the Great Stone has been actively advancing digital transformation, giving play to the scientific research advantages of surrounding countries to create a Belt and Road scientific research cooperation platform.
The park has successfully attracteda group of modern enterprises and highly promising projects, injecting new impetus into the economic development of Belarus and the economic and trade cooperation between China and Belarus.
The Belarus Pavilion e-commerce project, for example,was put into operation on e-commerce platforms of JD and Douyin (Chinese version of TikTok) in June of 2022, Li Zhonghan noted. The project used live-streaming commerce for high-quality Belarusian products, generating 8.9335 million yuan of sales last year.
China-Belarus Aerospace High-tech Industry R&D Center Co., Ltd. settled in Great Stone in 2018. Li Ping, the chairman of the company, introduced that the company had established its first overseas R&D center in the park, and cooperated with domestic and foreign partners such as the National Academy of Sciences of Belarus, Belarusian State University, Xidian University, and the asset company under Xi’an Institute of Optics and Precision Mechanics of CAS for the operation of multiple international joint laboratories, involving research in new materials, plasma technology and new energy, and has achieved preliminary results. The company has also recently collaborated with the National Academy of Sciences of Belarus, among other parties, to establish an international cooperation platform for digital carbon neutrality.
The park has been approved as the first unmanned vehicle pilot area and the first 5G pilot area in Belarusandis also currently advancing cooperation with related companies in the application of Beidou satellite and resource satellite, and working on plans with relevant companies to build a new energy vehicle city integrating design, assembly, sales, maintenance and accessories.
Meanwhile, the park is cooperating with the College of Life Sciences of Qingdao University for promoting China-Belarus cooperation in projects such as digital intelligent ecological agriculture, global plant embryonic stem cell center, high-value utilization of traditional Chinese medicine, according to Li Ping. (Edited by Niu Huizhe with Xinhua Silk Road, niuhuizhe@xinhua.org)
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