18 October 2024
On October 17-18, 2024, the XXV International Scientific Conference “Problems of Forecasting and State Regulation of Socio-Economic Development” was held in Minsk.
The event was attended by representatives of government bodies, academia, the business community, and international organizations.
The main goal of the Conference was to determine the priorities and mechanisms of state regulation of sustainable development in the new geopolitical and geoeconomic reality.
The First Deputy Prime Minister of the Republic of Belarus Nikolai Snopkov addressed the conference participants with a welcoming speech.“Today, large-scale changes are taking place in the global, regional and national economies. In a very short time, we were forced to significantly revise our positions in the foreign economic sphere, take a new approach to the use of macroeconomic policy instruments, and reassess the reliability of international mechanisms”, – reported Nikolay Snopkov.He also emphasized the importance of uniting the efforts of government bodies, the scientific community and business to preserve the potential of the Belarusian economy and determine the prospects for its development. He expressed confidence that the recommendations developed during the Conference will help find ways to solve important problems in the interests of improving the quality of people’s life, stable and harmonious development of Belarus.
The National Coordinator for the Achieving of the Sustainable Development Goals, Deputy Chairperson of the Council of the Republic of the National Assembly of the Republic of Belarus Sergei Khomenko addressed the conference participants with the welcoming speech. He noted that the endless series of crises and the complex web of connections of the modern world system are associated with a number of challenges affecting the Republic of Belarus.“Today, the entire country faces the task of adapting the economic system to new realities. Its solution requires hard work and high commitment from all members of society. At the same time, it is extremely important to formulate a well-thought-out program of action that would take into account our national characteristics, as well as external trends and threats. And in this, in my opinion, today’s event should help, – noted Sergey Khomenko. – The wide range of issues covered by the Conference clearly demonstrates that the country’s socio-economic development is not an isolated issue of one department, but the result of the coordinated work of all branches of government and state institutions”.Full text of the speech
In his welcoming speech, the Minister of Economy of the Republic of Belarus Yuri Chebotar emphasized: “Artificial intelligence, big data, robotics – this is already our reality. In such reality, we must build a new intellectual economy with our own technologies, and strong regions should become our competitive advantages. The core of the vision of the future of Belarus is the person as the main value. And our task is to create a developed, exemplary infrastructure for people’s life, and most importantly, their development and self-realization, regardless of their place of residence”.
The Chairperson of the Committee on Economic Policy and Strategic Planning of St. Petersburg, Anatoly Kotov, addressed the conference participants with a welcoming speech.“Our countries are successfully addressing issues of updating and implementing national strategies for sustainable development and solving technological security problems. The dialogue on regional development strategies began in St. Petersburg on October 10 as part of the XXII Forum of Strategists and will continue today as part of a discussion platform. I am confident that today’s event will be useful and meaningful for all its participants and will give new impetus to cooperation between our countries’, – said the Chairperson of the Committee.
Director of the Shanghai International Training Center CIFAL Wang Genxiang said in his welcoming speech: “In June this year, in Shanghai, we successfully held an event on regional economic development of Belarus, a training on cooperation, and established friendly relations of cooperation, which allowed us to gather today in Belarus to discuss the challenges facing the world and promote the implementation of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, social and economic development, cooperation and exchanges”.
The program of events of the International Scientific Conference included three discussion platforms: “Global matrix of strategic choice: challenges and risks for national economies”, “Technological security in a competitive environment: reality or utopia”, “Regional development strategies: localization of global and national goals”.
As part of the discussion platform “Regional development strategies: localization of global and national goals”, aimed at improving the methodological and practical aspects of regional development management, methodological approaches to the development of regional sustainable development strategies were presented, as well as proposals for regional sustainable development strategies of the Vitebsk, Grodno, Gomel and Minsk regions for the period up to 2040, developed with the assistance of UNDP within the framework of the project “Support to the Efforts of the Republic of Belarus in Nationalization and Localization of SDGs”.
Among the main strategic directions for regional development were named: overcoming negative demographic trends, reducing intra-regional differentiation and developing rural areas, ensuring environmental sustainability, efficient use of resources, and also the development of digitalization, entrepreneurship, innovation, active work with youth.
Head of the Main Directorate for Regional Development and Property Relations of the Ministry of Economy of the Republic of Belarus Tatyana Andreeva presented approaches to assessing work on the accelerated development of districts and cities with a population of 80 thousand people or more and ways to improve them. She noted that during the formation of approaches to assessing the sustainable development of these regions and their implementation, it is necessary to take into account transparency for users. She also noted the fact that such approaches must correspond to the objectives of the country’s socio-economic development and be able to assess the implementation of accelerated development tasks as a whole.
In addition, the Conference program included a number of sectional sessions to discuss current issues of macroeconomic and foreign economic policy, development of the social sphere, increasing the competitiveness of the national economy through increased investment and innovation, strategies and mechanisms for regional development, and other issues.
Overall, based on the results of the discussion platforms and sectional sessions of the Conference, the participants support the priorities set out in the draft National Sustainable Development Strategy for the period up to 2040. In particular:
Considering the system-forming significance of the NSDS for the development of a five-year program for socio-economic development, it is necessary to ensure compliance with these priorities during the formation goals and objectives for 2026 – 2030.
The Conference also included a round table “Cooperation between the regions of Belarus and Russia: resources and development potential” with the participation of representatives of the central and regional authorities of the Republic of Belarus and the Russian Federation.
The round table was the fourth and final event in a series of meetings on the development and practical implementation of the Program for cross-border cooperation of regions in the Union State, which took place within the framework of the 2024 Forum of Strategists in St. Petersburg on October 10–11 and the Conference in Minsk.
Participants of the round table got acquainted with the results of the Forum of Strategies – 2024 and previous meetings of the discussion cycle, prospects for completing the development and launch of the Program of cooperation between the regions of Belarus and Russia. Participants also exchanged their views on existing obstacles to full-fledged cooperation, ways to overcome them, available resources within the Union State of Belarus and Russia, and discussed approaches to interaction between the two countries in this area.
During the discussions, was also emphasized the importance and great potential of regional cooperation between the Republic of Belarus and the Russian Federation for achieving the Sustainable Development Goals, which will be facilitated by further work on the development of Regional Sustainable Development Strategies of the Republic of Belarus, carried out with the support of the Joint Project “Support to the Efforts of the Republic of Belarus in Nationalization and Localization of SDGs”.
As a result of the meeting, the participants decided to draw up a final document of a series of discussions in St. Petersburg and Minsk for distribution among interested organizations.
The Conference events were organized with the support of UNDP within the framework of the Project “Support to the Efforts of the Republic of Belarus in Nationalization and Localization of SDGs”, funded by the Russian Federation.
The holding of the International Scientific Conference “Problems of Forecasting and State Regulation of Socio-Economic Development” contributes to the implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development by the Republic of Belarus.
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Prepared based on information from the telegram channel of the Research Institute of Economics of the Ministry of Economy
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