March 21, Minsk /BELTA/. The procedure and conditions for providing state support to legal entities and individual entrepreneurs have been amended in Belarus. This decision is contained in Decree No. 127 of the President of Belarus dated March 14, 2013, as reported to BELTA by the Public Relations Department of the Ministry of Economy.
The document has been adopted to adjust the procedure and conditions for providing state support to legal entities and individual entrepreneurs, established by Decree No. 182 of the Head of State dated March 28, 2006. In particular, this normative legal act simplifies the procedure for obtaining state support in the form of preferential interest rates on bank loans for organisations implementing production modernisation plans. "The essence of the simplification is that all organisations included in the list of those undergoing modernisation are not required to obtain a preliminary conclusion on the expediency of providing state support, but directly submit documents to higher state bodies, which prepare relevant draft government decisions," the Ministry of Economy explained.
In addition, amendments have been made to the set of indicators established as conditions for providing state support. Now, for all organisations that can apply for it, instead of growth rates of production volumes and profitability of realised products, indicators for labour productivity growth rates and sales profitability are provided. For modernisation enterprises, indicators for revenue and added value per employee are provided. The decree also provides for the abandonment of the practice of reducing prices (tariffs) for energy resources for certain organisations and granting deferrals and instalment payments for their debts in order to reduce cross-subsidisation.
This document brings Decrees of the President of Belarus No. 520 dated November 3, 2005, and No. 182 dated March 28, 2006, into compliance with the requirements of the customs legislation of the Customs Union. "It is stipulated that the procedure for granting deferrals, instalment payments, and tax credits approved by Decree No. 182 does not apply to changes in the terms of payment of customs duties established by law. This is due to the fact that currently, issues of establishing customs duties, granting benefits on them, and changing the terms of their payment are regulated by the customs legislation of the Customs Union," the department noted.