New format of trade services in the Vitebsk region: optimization of consumer cooperation and the arrival of chain retailers in rural areas
– For objective reasons, the share of services provided to the rural population by consumer cooperation entities will gradually decrease. But we expect that, following the example of the Orsha district, various network companies will enter other regions of the region. This has become possible thanks to the use of benefits and preferences. In addition, we hope for the activity of individual entrepreneurs and small enterprises, which have also received preferences for working in rural areas (under Decree No. 345), – said Irina Levkovich.
Thus, in 6 months of the current year, in accordance with the decree, 176 individual entrepreneurs and 61 legal entities organized their work. The total amount of funds saved through the benefits they received amounted to 981 thousand Belarusian rubles. The main share is accounted for by benefits on property tax and VAT.
At the same time, Marina Zubovich, Deputy Head of the Main Department of Trade and Services of the Regional Executive Committee, noted the existence of problems in trade services in rural areas. 15 consumer cooperation network enterprises are unprofitable in the region. In July 2018, an application for bankruptcy of the Polotsk district consumer union is planned to be filed with the Economic Court of the region, and in August – for the Orsha district consumer union, with their subsequent liquidation.
– To increase the efficiency of consumer cooperation, stabilize its financial situation, the regional consumer union is implementing an action plan until 2020. Work is being carried out to optimize the structure, liquidate unprofitable district consumer unions, transfer trading facilities belonging to them to solvent organizations, reduce costs, and put unused buildings into economic circulation, – said Marina Zubovich.
According to her, in the current year, 76 trading facilities and routes of 19 mobile shops of the liquidated Glubokskoye and Polotsk district unions were leased to the Dokshitsy, Verkhnedvinsk, Rossonsky, and Ushachi district unions.
– By the end of 2018, it is planned to open a store and a shopping center in the young microdistrict "Bilevo-3" in Vitebsk, as well as a shopping center in Novopolotsk. The implementation of a number of investment projects for the reconstruction of the building at Zenkova Street into a multifunctional shopping center and the construction of the "Vesta" store at Leningradskaya Street in the regional center, the construction of a trade and public catering facility in the agro-town Mazolovo of Vitebsk district will continue. And in district centers, a new network operator for the Vitebsk region, with whom 11 contracts have been concluded, will begin to implement investment projects, – summarized Marina Zubovich.
BELTA. Photo praca-by.info