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February 2020 www.intellinews.com I Page 2
Belarus emerges as Europe's leading high tech hub
that is in service across the Former Soviet Union, the high tech park on the edge of the capital is has been a startling success.
The combination of a hard science bias in
the education system, a few highly effective entrepreneurs, a geographical location that is convenient for customers in the US, Europe and Asia, as well as solid government support for promoting the sector has turned Belarus into
a software factory that caters to the biggest international names around the globe. And with plans for a second high tech park in the capital and more in the regions, there is no sign of the industry growth slowing any time soon.
“In monetary terms the export of hi-tech products is estimated at nearly $15bn [in 2019], and the increase in the information and communications sector alone made up about $0.5bn,” Aleksandr Shumilin, Chairman of Belarus' State Science and Technology Committee told a press conference
in Minsk in late January, adding that demand for Belarusian high-tech products is still growing.
“Our tech solutions arouse great interest abroad," he said. "Foreign companies are ready to buy them."
In 2019, hi-tech and science products accounted for 35.6% of Belarus' total exports, up 2.5% from the previous year, Belarusian news agency Belta reported. Meanwhile, over the last five years, the value of Belarus's software exports increased an astonishing 20-fold.
Technoparks as a growth driver
Belarus' IT industry received its first serious boost in 2005 when High Tech Park (HTP) was created in Minsk. The idea was the brainchild of EPAM Systems, a local started up that set the ball rolling in 1993, exporting its innovative software
engineering services to companies in the region – both in the west and to the eastern European countries.
The company was founded by Arkadiy Dobkin, who was based in Princeton, US, and Leo Lozner, who was in Minsk. In 1998 the company won its first really big deal, working for SAP AG that provided the cash to expand before listing on the NYSE in 2012, the first ever company with Belarusian roots to IPO. In 2017 EPAM grossed over $1bn in revenues for the first time. As bne IntelliNews reported in
a profile, Dobkin is arguably the most successful businessman to ever emerge from Belarus.
"We are just at the beginning of the transformation and it will never stop, as it is developing so fast," Dobkin told bne IntelliNews from his headquarters in Newtown, Pennsylvania in May 2016. "As one transformation wave finishes, then that will push change. As increasingly there are smart machines everywhere, I anticipate if anything this process will accelerate."
EPAM has been the engine behind Belarus’ tech sector success, but the industry has reached critical mass as other companies start to tap into the resources in the country. The government
to set up the technopark in order to train a new generation of engineers and over half of EPAM’s work force remains in Minsk today. With the ballooning export revenues the government has provided the tech sector with substantial tax privileges for technopark residents and is now keen to develop the business further.
In 2018, another regulation was enacted, extending more privileges to Belarus' IT sector and helping to solidify the country's status as Eastern Europe's major tech hub. The regulation expanded the list of areas that entitle companies to technopark residency, simplified the process of IT professionals' relocation to Belarus and legalized the use of cryptocurrencies.
Currently, 91.9% of HTP's software output is exported, mainly to other European countries