23 May, Minsk /BELTA correspondent/. The Government of Belarus has developed a new system of state support measures for the real sector of the economy. This was announced on 20 May by Prime Minister Mikhail Myasnikovich at a meeting with journalists, as reported by a BELTA correspondent. According to Mikhail Myasnikovich, the government has been actively working on improving state support measures recently and has ultimately developed new approaches that will allow "clearing the backlog" in the old system. Belarus, for example, sets the task of increasing milk production volumes to 10.5 million tonnes per year by the end of the five-year plan. Currently, it is 6 million tonnes per year. However, this is not solely the responsibility of farmers and collectives. It is a state task. It is a state priority. Therefore, the state must create conditions for the construction of dairy farms, the reconstruction of old ones, and ultimately for the planned accelerated growth in production volumes. According to Mikhail Myasnikovich, there should be corresponding conditions for these priorities, including preferential lending. "We have made a decision and will report to the President in the near future that this (state support. - BELTA note) should be implemented not simply by distributing to each collective farm, but on a competitive basis to those who offer the best conditions and the best business plan," explained Mikhail Myasnikovich. Certain support will also be provided to those farms that are in objectively worse climatic conditions. However, this factor should not be the main one, "otherwise it will simply be a distribution of money per hectare of agricultural land." Furthermore, when providing state support to agricultural enterprises, the amounts of support previously provided to a particular farm or region will be taken into account. -0-

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