Are Chinese "Friends" Through With Lukashenka's Regime?

Beijing has decided not to take risks.

The Great Stone has asked Francabank for $2.5 million. The loan was needed "to refinance the funds spent by the joint company to build standard production buildings".

At that, according to the National Statistics Committee data on the work of the industrial park residents in January-September 2020, their total net loss increased to 45.6 million rubles.

The question arises: why this "megaproject" has not become successful at all?

Barys Zhaliba, Doctor of Economics, said in a comment to udf.by that he was somewhat surprised by the lack of positive financial indicators at the Great Stone.

"When the Great Stone was founded, they said a lot of words that there would be lots of not even Chinese enterprises, but advanced Chinese enterprises. As it turned out over time, the Chinese do not always share modern technologies. It is enough to remember the modernization of the cement plants, which cannot become profitable, and the budget returns the credits for them," - Zhaliba said.

However, he has a theory why the work of the Great Park residents is not impressive yet.

"When creating new enterprises, it takes time to "drum up" them so that after high administrative costs they can reach the break-even point, the production volume, when the production cost decreases. Maybe, the residents still need time to increase the output of their products," - Zhaliba said.

Why does Beijing, unlike Moscow, not help official Minsk with loans in a difficult economic and political situation?

"It is more obvious here. Russia proceeds not only from economic considerations, but also from political ones. And China is primarily guided by economic considerations. If Beijing saw that the situation is normalizing, they could give credit, and so far prefer to monitor the situation and not take risks. They are very cautious in this regard in other countries, too," - Zhaliba said.