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bne October 2020 Companies & Markets I 29
“This is a very large share, taking into account the outstripping rates that our IT companies demonstrate. The IT sector in its influence on the economy of our country has caught up with many traditional industries such as agriculture, transport and construction materials production,” the minister said.
IT is only just smaller in dollar terms than the agricultural sector, which accounts for 7.2% of GDP. IT jobs have become a haven for ambitious young Belarusians as one of the
few modern careers available to them. Krutoy says that IT
has become the engine of economic growth and the only
fast growing sector. The rest of the economy is dominated
by Soviet-era machinery and raw material state-owned enterprises (SOEs), which largely employ blue collar workers. And with average incomes at less than $500 per month the retail and banking sectors remain underdeveloped due to the small size of the emerging middle class.
Now the IT sector is under threat and experts say that once Belarus’ professionals leave they are unlikely to come back – especially if Lukashenko remains in office.
Russian employment agencies say that up to a quarter of the requests for IT jobs are now coming from Belarusians, whereas before the political crisis broke out their share was no more than 5%, the recruiting company Benchmark Executive told Kommersant.
Some companies have already closed their offices in Minsk. The Japanese-owed Viber was the first to report it was withdrawing, soon followed by Russia’s internet giant Yandex.
Contactless payments grow in popularity in Slovakia
bne IntelliNews
Contactless payments via banking cards and mobile phones are seeing ever-increasing use in Slovakia, according to the latest statistics published by the Slovak Banking Association.
By the end of June this year, the number of payment cards issued increased by 99,247 to about 5.33mn. More than 142mn transactions were carried out, worth a total of €6.57bn.
In 6M20, 7.2mn payments worth a total of €164.2mn were carried out via mobile phones, up from 1.3mn payments worth €26.8mn a year earlier.
Both pulled out, saying it was impossible to work in such a repressive atmosphere.
However, according to reports, many more companies are quietly relocating staff to neighbouring countries such as Poland, Russia, Ukraine and Romania, but have not made announcements, fearing retribution from the state and ordering employees not to talk about their moves. And
many more employees are thinking of leaving irrespective
of what their employers decide to do; one of Kommersant's interlocutors believes that, in general, about 70% of Belarusian developers are now thinking about looking for work abroad.
Some of the surrounding countries are actively encouraging the engineers to move, hoping to scoop up a lot of talent
to bolster their own local IT industries. The mayor of the Ukrainian city of Kharkiv has offered any Belarusian IT professional willing to move an attractive relocation package, and Lithuania also said it was offering accelerated access
to work visas for professionals going there and specifically mentioned it hoped the inflow of experienced professionals would help bolster its own IT industry.
While the Russian engineers that moved to Minsk are going back to Russia to find work, the Belarusians looking to emigrate are not expected to follow suit. Despite the size and wealth of the Russian market, the investment climate is too similar to that in Belarus, where the Kremlin interferes and there are no clear rules of the game. Most of the Belarusians that leave are expected to end up in EU countries, with Poland and the three Baltic states taking the lion’s share.
“The growth in the number of mobile phone payments, which increased y/y more than fivefold, is driven mostly by the fact that it's a relatively new service, offered by more banks now than in the past. The growth potential has partially benefited also from the coronavirus crisis,” said Slovak Banking Association analyst Marcel Laznia, quoted by the Slovak News Agency.
According to Laznia, there is still growth potential for mobile phone payments. “For comparison, the number of transactions carried out with contactless payment cards is fourteen times higher than those made by mobile phones,” he added.
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