A major Hong Kong company is ready to invest in the construction of a transport and logistics center near Orsha

July 14, Minsk /Olga Belyavskaya - BELTA/. A major Hong Kong company is ready to invest in the creation of an international multimodal transport and logistics center on the basis of the Orsha Aircraft Repair Plant. This was announced today at a press conference by Pavel Bozhanov, Head of the Department of Strategic Development, Coordination and Investment of Transport Systems of the Ministry of Transport and Communications of Belarus, in response to a question from a BELTA correspondent. According to Pavel Bozhanov, the investor has already financially confirmed their readiness to participate in the project. "In the near future, we plan to formalize everything in the form of an investment agreement, the draft of which is already being prepared," he informed, adding that the action plan for the project's implementation with the participation of the Hong Kong company has been approved by the government. Organizational issues are currently being resolved. In the first stage, the investor proposes to carry out cargo transportation from China. "The whole point is that planes flying to China are not allowed into Europe," explained the representative of the Ministry of Transport. "It is expected that they will fly not through Moscow's Domodedovo Airport, and part of the cargo flows will be redistributed to Orsha." The Orsha Aircraft Repair Plant has a runway, which is currently used only for receiving aircraft for repair. The task is to load this runway and fully utilize the land plots that are not currently used by the plant. "The runway will remain state property, and a large terminal complex with an area of approximately 1 million square meters is planned to be built nearby," added Pavel Bozhanov. According to him, negotiations are underway in parallel with a Latvian investor, who is also interested in participating in the project with the involvement of an Austrian company. The representative of the Ministry of Transport did not specify the volume of investments planned for the construction of the multimodal transport and logistics center. "There is no concrete information yet, but we hope that the project with the Hong Kong investor will also lead to the project with the Latvian one, and we think of implementing it all together," he said. Answering journalists' questions about whether Belarusian transport and logistics centers will compete with Russian ones, Pavel Bozhanov said that Belarus "will not get in the way of Russian cargo owners." Russian specialists have not expressed such concerns. "The projects we are implementing do not yet significantly affect the cargo turnover that is tied to Russia," he added. In general, in the coming years, it is planned to create 50 logistics centers in Belarus, 18 of which will be transport and logistics centers. Some projects are already underway. These include the construction of the "Prylesye" transport and logistics center by an Iranian company. "Organizational issues for the project have already been resolved, including the allocation of land," informed Pavel Bozhanov. "This is one of the most active projects for the creation of transport and logistics centers in Belarus." Another major project will be implemented by a Belgian investor in the vicinity of Minsk National Airport. The regional executive committee has already decided to allocate a plot for the new center. "In the near future, the Belgian investor will visit Belarus, we will resolve organizational issues, and I think that construction equipment will start working on the site soon," said the head of the department of the Ministry of Transport.