Page 26 - BNE_magazine_04_2019

26 I Companies & Markets bne April 2019
Belarus Hi-Tech Park exports up by a third in 2018 to $1.414bn
bne IntelliNews
In 2018 the exports of the Hi-Tech Park (HTP) were estimated at $1.414bn, up 38% over 2017, BelTA reported on March 4. According to forecasts of international auditors, the HTP was to approach this target only by 2020. The biggest consumers of the HTP’s products are the European Union member states and the US (over 90%).
“The export growth surpassed all our expectations. The projections made by leading agencies were also beaten. Naturally, this is a direct consequence and an obvious success of the ordinance passed by our head of state. This success belongs not only to the Hi-Tech Park, but also the entire country. Belarus is indeed turning into one of the most powerful IT clusters of the whole of Eastern Europe,” Vsevolod Yanchevsky, director of the state institution
Hi-Tech Park Administration, said.
According to his estimates, the HTP has everything in place
In 2018 the export of the Hi-Tech Park was estimated at $1.414bn, up 38% over 2017, BelTA reported on March 4.
to maintain momentum. The HTP's total output was estimated at BYR3.202bn, up 47% over 2017.
HTP resident companies developed and introduced IT solutions worth BYR297mn on the domestic market, up 59% over 2017. The average salary of an IT specialist last year was BYR4,487.
“The average IT specialist pays 3.2 times more income taxes than the average Belarusian, however the contribution to the Social Security Fund is the same,” the HTP noted.
After the Digital Economy Development Ordinance came into force, the HTP welcomed 267 new companies, more than over the HTP's 12-year history. The companies that had joined the HTP earlier expanded their operations and created 5,000 new jobs in 2018. All in all, the HTP got 13,000 new employees last year. As of late 2018, resident companies of the Hi-Tech Park employed 45,700 people.
Hungary online retail sales post double-digit growth
bne IntelliNews
Online retail sales in Hungary grew 17% to HUF425bn (€1.3bn) last year, just a tad below the 18% annual growth in 2017, according to a joint survey by GKI Digital and Arukereso released on March 13. E-commerce in Hungary accounted for 4.5% of total retail sales turnover last year.
Online sales are growing at a pace three-fold that of retail sales. The number of active online shoppers reached 3.2mn and the average transaction value exceeded HUF11,000, up from HUF10,000 a year earlier, GKI said.
The survey shows Hungarian shoppers placed 38mn orders to domestic e-retailers, up 13% from a year earlier. Each shopper ordered products online 12 times, on average, 7% more than in the previous year.
Annual average spending came close to HUF133,000. Almost 80% of total online sales in Hungary are generated at com- panies which also have a brick-and-mortar business. In value terms, sales of consumer electronics generated the most turnover in online trade, followed by toys and cultural goods, computer technology, FMCG goods, fashion and sports, beauty and health, and home and gardening products. Cash transac- tions still accounted for almost 60% of total sales.
As in the previous three years, Extreme Digital was again Hungary's biggest online retailer last year, according to an annual ranking by market research firm GKI Digital.
Hungary's leading online electronics retailer is also present in eight other countries. The company's last public earnings figure showed revenues rose to HUF33.3bn in 2016 from HUF 29bn in 2016.
www.bne.eu