Welcoming remarks by Zachary Taylor - Deputy Representative, UNDP Belarus, at the final workshop from a series of regional round tables for businesses on Belarus’ WTO accession.

Ladies and Gentlemen. Thanks to Ambassador Serpikov, Deputy Chair, and of course the Embassy of the Russian Federation who have guided Belarus through the accession negotiations and shared their own WTO accession and membership experience.

This round table in Minsk is the last of 6 across BLR involving more than 600 business leaders. This dialogue has enabled businesses’ views are properly heard before accession in, hopefully, 2020.

This conversation is important because currently around 100 countries have discriminative trade conditions to Belarusian goods. This is a problem even close to home – in Ukraine, customers are unable to purchase Belarusian-made machinery, harvesters from the Gomel Agriculture Machinery plant; meanwhile, Belarusian dairy products face significant trade barriers to neighboring EU markets.

The WTO now counts 164 members – or 84% of the globe - such a prolific figure is testimony to the benefits afforded by membership. Now it is Belarus’ turn.

As Belarus continues to diversify its economic model, export growth is a key component of this strategy. The WTO anticipates 4,4% growth this year.

The WTO will help Belarus to switch to a standardized, export-driven economic model; deleveraging reliance on SOEs which has, in many cases, crowded out private sector investment.

Ladies and Gentlemen, WTO membership will improve the business environment, decrease trade volatility and encourage higher levels of inward foreign direct investment from all over the world.

Whilst exports to traditional Eurasian Economic Union partners will stay strong, membership will allow Belarusian products to compete globally with a whole raft of other countries that are near and far. Of course, this will also mean that investments are necessary in many sectors so that these exports can compete on the global market.

Allow me to touch on a couple of sectors that are particularly important for Belarus. In the heavy-duty truck market, BELAZ and MAZ have together secured 30% of the global heavy-truck market. Every 10th tractor in the world is made in Belarus. Belarusian producers are selling almost 20% of global flax production and are among the top 5 global linen fiber producers (Orsha Linen Factory is the biggest producer and exporter of linen fabrics and products, Factories in Slonim and Babrujsk are going next).

These are some of the things Belarus should be very proud of and these are some of the things, which will be market-leading post 2020. There are also enormous opportunities in the IT sector with 200 or so companies generating $1bn last year.

WTO membership will ensure “a seat at the table” in WTO trade policy-making and provide access to the WTO’s dispute settlement mechanism.

Membership will not impact the cost of domestically produced goods, but it will give local end-use consumers more choice with greater competition and lower prices of foreign goods; this in turn will have a positive impact on citizens’ welfare in the years to come.

Currently Belarus ranks 37th in the Competitive Industrial Performance Index ranking. Membership will make it cheaper for Belarusian manufacturers to import foreign-made parts that are essential for the country’s productivity. This will allow Belarusian producers to reduce export prices making the high-quality Belarusian-made products more competitive at the global market.

In terms of fears over the future of Belarus’ agricultural sector; it is noteworthy to recall that following the Russian Federation’s accession, its own agricultural sector grew by 12%.

In closing, let me thank the project team and all the partners who have worked so hard to get this close to accession and urge us all to use the next 18 months to ensure a membership agreement that can align the welfare and interests of the state, citizens and businesses.

Thank you very much.