Volozhin Region
Executive Committee

Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of Belarus to Brazil Aleksandr Tserkovsky took part in a reception held for representatives of diplomatic missions, BelTA learned from the Belarusian embassy in Brazil.

The event for foreign ambassadors was held by Brazil's Minister of Foreign Affairs Ernesto Araujo.

During the meeting the Belarusian ambassador discussed the state of affairs between Belarus and Brazil with the representatives of the Brazilian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The parties also discussed measures to intensify bilateral cooperation in 2021.

A solemn ceremony of awarding the winners of the XVI National Competition "Golden Letter" was held in Minsk.

In 2020, the competition is held for the 16th time, initiated by the Ministry of Information of the Republic of Belarus.

This year, a total of 400 applications were submitted by periodicals, news agencies and personalities. 269 are regional media from 81 editions, 108 applications are republican media of 31 editions, corporate - 23.

The winners and laureates of the "Golden Letter" Competition in 2020 were, among other things, the media of the Minsk region. In particular, in the nomination "The best materials for youth, children and youth topics" the winner was "Editorial office of the newspaper" Adzinstva "(series of publications).

First Deputy Minister of Information Pavel Legkiy presented awards to the winners and laureates.

The competition in 2020 was replenished with two new nominations - "Best analytical material" (journalistic investigation, problematic article, author's column, review) and "Best fictional and publicistic material" (feature, essay, feuilleton).

Director of the National Institute of Education Valentina Ginchuk spoke about the unified digital education platform for institutions of general secondary education during a roundtable hosted by the BelTA press center on 17 December.

“The library of learning materials is one of the elements of the online resource currently under development. The library is structured by academic subjects, grades and modules developed on the basis of the curricula. All the materials that are being developed for the digital platform will comply with the standards of general secondary education and curricula approved by the Education Ministry,” said Valentina Ginchuk.

The library of learning materials includes several subsections. “Each module will provide a reference to the paragraph of the textbook, on the basis of which the module has been developed. Each module will have a section that focuses students' attention to a list of skills, which should be mastered in the study of a new topic,” the director of the institute said.

“The module will feature a video explaining the new learning material and test tasks for self-check. Additional materials will also be available. We plan that this section will include teachers' methodical tools and electronic educational resources,” Valentina Ginchuk added.

The library of learning materials is being developed for all the grades and in the all academic subjects. “The 11th grade students will have a new curricula starting from the academic year 2021/2022. In this regard, learning materials on the unified digital education platform for the 11th grade will be developed in 2021. They will correspond to the new programs and textbooks,” the director of the institute concluded.

Plans are in place to launch the platform in a test mode on 1 January 2021.

Strengthening the integration mechanisms in the post-Soviet space is an inevitable necessity, Belarus President Aleksandr Lukashenko said as he spoke at the online CIS summit on 18 December, BelTA has learned.

“Strengthening the integration mechanisms in the post-Soviet space is not a matter of choice but an inevitable necessity. I believe that we can talk about the benefits only when we fully realize the potential of the CIS. This will be one of the main priorities of Belarus' Presidency in the CIS next year, if toda we adopt the appropriate decision, which has already been coordinated," Aleksandr Lukashenko said.

The president noted that Belarus will traditionally publish the concept of its presidency later, but said he will outline its main priorities now.

Development of the common economic space

"We intend to focus on strengthening the role of the CIS to improve the standards of living, on solving the problems caused by globalization and addressing the new challenges of our time," the head of state said.

Belarus plans to work to develop the common economic space, promote trade liberalization, minimize the number of restrictions and exemptions, remove technical barriers, unify the rules and procedures of public procurement, and to develop the common markets of goods and services.

Aligning integration in the CIS and the EAEU

Particular attention will be paid to the work on aligning the multi-level integration processes in the CIS and the EAEU. Aleksandr Lukashenko is confident that, given closer cooperation between the executive bodies of these two associations, the countries will be able to strengthen their ties. “At least we should not allow a situation where deeper integration in the Eurasian Economic Union will turn into some sort of a dividing line in the trade and economic relations of the five participating states and other CIS countries,” he stressed.

According to the president, the member states should also continue systematic and consistent improvement of the coordinated transport policy, the search for specific solutions to energy supplies. “We see the need to improve the efficiency of the CIS inter-sectoral bodies, aimed at intensifying investment activities, expanding production cooperation, and searching for common points of economic growth,” the head of state added.

The head of state recalled that many integration associations were set up in the post-Soviet space. There were proposals to discontinue some of them or to merge, but the countries did not go for it. “Integration construction was described as different-level integration. The highest level of integration has been achieved in the Union State of Belarus and Russia, the Eurasian Economic Union and the CIS. Back then we agreed that we would pull up the level of cooperation from the bottom up. We are talking about the CIS and the Eurasian Economic Union. We seek to achieve the level of interrogation in the CIS on par with the one in the EAEU,” Aleksandr Lukashenko said.

According to the president, the member states should also continue systematic and consistent improvement of the coordinated transport policy, the search for specific solutions for energy supplies. “We see the need to improve the efficiency of the CIS inter-sectoral bodies, aimed at intensifying investment activities, expanding production cooperation, and searching for common points of economic growth,” the head of state added.

Aleksandr Lukashenko recalled the proposal of Azerbaijan President Ilham Aliyev, who invited CIS countries to take part in the restoration of settlements in Nagorno-Karabakh. At the recent EAEU summit, the Russian side offered cooperation in the aviation industry, the Belarusian leader recalled. "This is exactly what we need today. This is something we are missing in both the EAEU and the CIS. We need something to keep us interested, to be bind to one another: then it will be very difficult to tear one state away from another,” the president stressed.

Strengthening humanitarian ties

Aleksandr Lukashenko believes it is also important to pursue a coordinated policy regarding technical regulations in standardization, metrology, conformity assessment and accreditation, the use of sanitary and veterinary measures as a means to ensure the output of safe, high-quality and competitive products and services.

Belarus will traditionally pay close attention to strengthening humanitarian ties, expanding contacts in science, education, healthcare, information, culture, sport and tourism, work with young people, improving the image of the CIS in the international arena. During its presidency in the CIS, Belarus will also try to implement Uzbekistan's initiatives, which the country did not have time to implement in the outgoing year.

“Our strategic goal is to create a broad Eurasian zone of cooperation, and also to strengthen peace, friendship, good neighborliness and mutually beneficial relations in the region,” the president summarized.

The size of some taxes may be temporarily raised in order to compensate for the money spent on fighting COVID-19.

Belarusian First Deputy Finance Minister Dmitry Kiyko made the statement during an expanded-participation session of the Budget and Finance Commission of the House of Representatives of the National Assembly on 17 December, BelTA has learned.

The official noted that as a temporary measure they suggest raising the size of the profit tax for mobile carriers and the universal telecommunication services operator from 18% to 30% in 2021-2022. The profit tax can be raised from 25% to 30% for pawn shops.

The income tax on money earned by individuals as part of contracts with residents of the Hi-Tech Park and the China-Belarus industrial park Great Stone may be raised from 9% to 13%.

The government is also in favor of raising the size of the land tax and the rental fees for land plots, which are provided for building shopping centers, including parking lots of these shopping centers, from 0.7% to 1.5% of their cadastral value.

Municipal councils of deputies may be authorized to raise or reduce the size of the universal tax on self-employed businessmen and other natural persons depending on their kind of business. The Minsk City Executive Committee may be granted the right to raise the size of this tax by up to four times.

Oblast councils of deputies may be authorized to introduce a local tax on vehicles with the max weight of 5 tonnes and below that cross the Belarusian border. The size of the local tax will not exceed three base amounts.

According to Dmitry Kiyko, the alternative to this budget consolidation is much worse. The government would have to reduce spending, increase deficit, or raise the size of the main taxes on corporations and individuals.

Dmitry Kiyko explained that revenues from these fiscal measures will be spent on fighting COVID-19. This year the government has spent about Br600 million extra on it, including on salary bonuses for 86,000 people. Apart from that, about Br1.5 billion was channeled into the real sector of the economy due to the pandemic.

Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of Belarus to the Republic of Korea Andrei Popkov met with SK Bioscience CEO Ahn Jae-yong, BelTA learned from the Belarusian Embassy in the Republic of Korea.

SK Bioscience is one of Korea's largest vaccine manufacturers. The company is pursuing its own COVID-19 vaccine and is collaborating with global biotech companies to produce components for a coronavirus vaccine.

During the meeting the parties exchanged views on the latest trends in the bio-pharmaceutical industry, emphasized the importance of having national infrastructures to produce vaccines, and discussed possible ways of cooperation, including in the field of research.

They also discussed a possibility of partnerships between companies from different countries in the production of vaccines.

Belarus President Aleksandr Lukashenko met with Apostolic Nuncio to the United Kingdom Archbishop Claudio Gugerotti on 17 December, BelTA informs.

Claudio Gugerotti worked as Apostolic Nuncio to Belarus in 2011-2015. This time he is visiting Belarus as a special envoy of Pope Francis. “We are pleased to welcome you in Belarus as a person who has left a good mark after your service. You spent a couple of years here,” the head of state said at the meeting with the archbishop.

“I very happy that His Holiness Pope Francis sent you to Belarus. It's a pleasure for me to have a meeting with you. I have good impressions from the meetings, talks and conversations that we had when you served here. I've always said that Pope Francis, in my opinion, is a people's person,” Aleksandr Lukashenko said.

The president asked Claudio Gugerotti to wish a Happy New Year to Pope Francis and to wish him strong health. “If he gets sick, he should not worry: he can come to Belarus for treatment, we know how to treat. But now it's better not to get sick. Soon we will celebrate Christmas and New Year – there is no time to get sick. But in any case, he can come to Belarus,” the head of state said with a humorous undertone.

The archbishop assured that he will covey these words to Pope Francis. In his words, the Pope wanted to celebrate Christmas together with believers, but quarantine measures do not allow doing it right now.

Aleksandr Lukashenko also thanked the special envoy of the Pope for the visit describing it as a good sign. “We've always had many topics for discussion. Some issues remain unsolved as more time is needed. But we've made certain progress,” the president said.

Claudio Gugerotti also believes that a lot was done for the development of relations during his service in Belarus. “Unfortunately, you left us too early. After the United Kingdom you need to come back,” the head of state said. “There can be retirement after the United Kingdom. We don't see much sun there – it's quite dangerous to health,” the archbishop also said jokingly.

Speaking about the pandemic, the head of state said that the situation had begun to stabilize in Belarus. “As of today, we have a few good signs: there has been no exponential increase for two weeks, we have stopped at a certain figure. And the main thing is that the number of pneumonia patients has been reducing by 20-30-40 every day. Therefore, I am optimistic and I believe that we will manage to keep it,” Aleksandr Lukashenko said.

The Roman Catholic Church is the second largest religious denomination in Belarus. In the past 20 years the number of religious communities of the Roman Catholic Church increased four times to 498 in the country. They are united in four dioceses of Minsk and Mogilev, Vitebsk, Grodno, Pinsk.

Communities of the Roman Catholic Church operate 514 churches and are building 31 new churches. From 1998 to 2020 the state has transferred about 300 facilities to the church for religious purposes.

There are eight Roman Catholic bishops in Belarus. Parishes have 453 priests, including 71 foreign nationals, mostly from Poland. There are 36 foreign nuns. Belarus has two theological schools in Grodno and Pinsk. The Roman Catholic Catehetical College was opened in Baranovichi in 2009. The John the Baptist catholic college was registered in the Minsk and Mogilev diocese in 2013. The Saint John Paul II academy was registered in 2015. However, its construction has not started yet. The Saint Casimir catholic college was registered in the Grodno diocese in 2018.

Belarus President Aleksandr Lukashenko met with Minsk Oblast Governor Aleksandr Turchin on 17 December, BelTA has learned.

The agenda of the meeting was dominated by two topics - economic performance of Minsk Oblast and the way the region is combating the coronavirus.

According to Aleksandr Turchin, preliminary data suggest that the gross regional product in January-November this year was 99.9% as against the same period last year. “Such a figure seems to be high, but disappointing: we fell short of 0.1%. Nevertheless, at the beginning of the year the figure was 91%, and now it is 99.9%. In other words, the region picked up steam over this time. We have cautious optimism that by the end of the year the GRP will be as high as last year's,” the governor said.

“Well, hopefully. You are falling short by just a tenth of a percent... However, we still have December. It seems to be not bad. As an economist, you understand that we need a result, because we should not expect that the next year will be good. You see what is happening around us. Therefore, let's say that we have done the impossible, but we should have done a little more,” Aleksandr Lukashenko said.

As to the situation with coronavirus in Minsk Oblast, there are grounds to believe that the COVID-19 has hit the plateau in the region. “According to our estimates, two weeks of data point to a plateau. There is no increase. Pneumonia cases and confirmed coronavirus cases neither increase nor decline,” Aleksandr Turchin said.

Scientists of the Federal Medical and Biological Agency (FMBA) of Russia have developed algorithms that can accurately predict the severity of the coronavirus infection, TASS learned from the press service of the FMBA.

“Researchers from Russia's Federal Medical and Biological Agency analyzed a great number of clinical and diagnostic parameters of a sample of over 6,900 patients who had symptoms of varying severity. This allowed them to develop mathematical models of the outcome of the disease based on machine learning algorithms,” the statement reads.

These algorithms confirmed that a number of clinical factors can help predict the severity of the course of the disease with a high degree of accuracy (about 90%). The clinical factors that were taken into account in the analysis were ferritin, C-reactive protein, erythrocyte sedimentation rate, neutrophil-lymphocyte ratio, respiratory rate and others.

The FMBA concluded that the likelihood of death of coronavirus patients increases with age, gender, body mass index and glucose levels.

The bill on contributions to the the state extra-budgetary social security fund of the Republic of Belarus passed the first treading in the House of Representatives of the National Assembly of Belarus on 16 December, BelTA learned from the press service of the lower house of the Belarusian Parliament.

The bill was introduced to the House of Representatives on 8 September 82020 by the Council of Ministers. The document is meant to ensure a comprehensive settlement of the issues regarding the payment of state social insurance contributions to the state extra-budgetary social security fund, to define the legal basis for the payment of compulsory insurance contributions, professional pension insurance contributions and other payments.

“Until now we had a number of regulations in this area, and we needed to systematize them into one comprehensive law. With regard to innovations, it is proposed to use an automated information system to monitor the fulfillment of monetary obligations both by contributors and by the fund in collecting contributions,” said Valery Strelchenok, a member of the Standing Commission on Labor and Social Affairs.

According to him, it is also proposed to introduce a new category of payers - organizations that provided monetary allowances to military servicemen. “We are also formalizing such category of payers as self-employed citizens. Also, persons in occupational therapy rehabilitation centers, or in prison will be regarded as working persons if they perform paid work. The bill determines the procedure to restore pension rights of an individual violated in the course of criminal proceedings. Such cases may include termination of criminal prosecution, an acquittal in court, or unreasonable criminal prosecution and further rehabilitation,” the MP said.