Funding for the state innovation development programme will amount to 6.9 billion roubles. Decree No. 448 of December 21 approving the programme was published today on the National Legal Internet Portal.
The financing structure provides for the following sources:
- 1.285 billion roubles — republican budget funds, including 1.193 billion roubles from the Republican Centralised Innovation Fund;
- 1.4 billion roubles — funds from local innovation funds;
- 656.57 million roubles — organisations’ own funds;
- 1.44 billion roubles — credit resources;
- 1.74 billion roubles — foreign investment, including foreign loans;
- 10.25 million roubles — funds from technopark innovation development funds.
As a result of the programme’s implementation, by 2030 the share of innovation-active organisations is expected to increase to 45%, while exports of knowledge-intensive and high-technology products are to reach 9 billion roubles, including at least 2 billion roubles by technopark residents.
The document also provides for benefits for organisations participating in the implementation of programme projects. It stipulates exemption from import customs duties (subject to Belarus’s international obligations) and VAT on technological equipment, components and spare parts, as well as raw materials and supplies imported exclusively for use in Belarus for the purposes of implementing programme projects. The benefit is granted for the duration of the project.
Exemption from land tax and land lease payments is also предусмотрено for land plots used for the construction of facilities envisaged by programme projects.
Programme project executors are also permitted to include in their costs an investment deduction of no more than 150% of:
- the initial cost of fixed assets acquired or created as part of the project;
- the value of capital investments in fixed assets recorded in accounting and used as part of the project in connection with their reconstruction, modernisation or restoration.
Within three months, the Council of Ministers must determine the list of republican projects and measures under the programme, implementation schedules and funding volumes, as well as target indicators for state bodies and a set of measures for developing the national innovation system through 2030.
Within the same timeframe, the State Committee on Science and Technology must determine the list of local facilities, implementation schedules and funding volumes.
The decree sets out five priority areas of innovation activity, as well as the general themes of projects to be implemented under each priority. The priorities include:
- digital technologies and artificial intelligence;
- innovative technologies in industry;
- biological, chemical-pharmaceutical and medical technologies;
- innovative technologies in the agro-industrial complex and food industry;
- scientific and scientific-technical support for the security of individuals, society and the state.