As the year 2018 drew to an end, Belarusian Ambassador to China Rudy Kiryl had little difficulty picking out his biggest achievement of the year: the visa-free deal between the two countries.
The intergovernmental agreement on 30-day visa-free travel came into force in August 2018. To welcome the expected increase of Chinese tourists, the Minsk airport has added Chinese to its list of service languages, joining Russian and English, while local hotels are busy upgrading their facilities to be more "China Friendly," giving staff language training, adding Asian dishes to their menu, and making sure that the ATMs accept China-issued cards.
"Right now we are trying to improve our infrastructure. We have already signed some agreements with UnionPay," Kiryl said during an interview with China Daily. "(Chinese tourists) like to buy something, have some good lunch or dinner and look at the scenery."
Popular destinations include the national park Belovezhskaya Pushcha and the Brest Fortress. For those interested in Belarus' red tourism, there is the house on Minsk's Zakharyevskaya Street where the first congress of the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party took place.
Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko has visited China five times, attending the Victory Day parade, the Belt and Road forum and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit, and entered into a comprehensive strategic partnership with China.
Belarus has been a staunch supporter of China's Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) ever since its inception in 2013. The massive initiative aims to revive the ancient Silk Road trading route through a variety of roads, pipelines, ports and other infrastructure improvements across Eurasia and Africa. So far, the biggest Belarusian project under its framework is the China-Belarus Industrial Park, also known as Great Stone.
The park is located 25 kilometers east of Minsk and covers an area of 91.5 square kilometers, as large as one third of Minsk and almost twice the size of Beijing's Xicheng district. "This is not only the biggest park in Belarus, this is the biggest park China ever made abroad," Kiryl emphasized.
The industrial park's pivotal position amid Europe and Asia, with convenient access to nearby railway stations, an international airport and a cross-continent highway from Berlin to Moscow, is particularly conducive to the international trade of materials and goods moving across the border.
In an effort to attract more investors, the Belarusian government offers generous tax breaks in the park. "They don't need to pay taxes for like 20 years, 10 plus 10," said Kiryl. According to the ambassador, there are currently 38 companies in the park, including Xinzhu Cooperation, a Chengdu-based construction equipment supplier, and Zoomlion, China's top construction machinery manufacturer.
Zoomlion is working on a $45 million factory in the industrial park to make equipment for utility vehicles, which will be assembled in association with the Belarusian automaker MAZ. Production at the factory is supposed to start in 2019. The Chinese company also showed interest in the co-production of firefighting vehicles in Belarus.
However, of all Chinese investments in Belarus, it's perhaps Chinese auto maker Geely's arrival in 2011 that has attracted the biggest media attention, as it's challenged the view that while Belarus is very good at producing big trucks, it has never been able to make small cars.
"We have not produced the light cars," Kiryl lamented. "Every family in our country dreamed about their own car. A house or home you can build by yourself, but a car we import. That's a kind of Belarusian Dream that was on the table of every Belarusian family."
The joint venture that Geely operated with two local firms was aptly named BelGee, giving the brand a touch of national prestige and expectation. In November 2017, when the first homemade car Geely Atlas NL3 rolled off the conveyor belt at a local factory, President Lukashenko enthused: "My dream to produce a car in Belarus has come true."
Lukashenko was ebullient on the bilateral relationship at the SCO summit in June 2018. "We are very glad that we lend each other unconditional support in any situation," he said. "I am convinced that if China is strong, Belarus will also be strong."
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