From appetizing buns to laminated doors. How is entrepreneurship developing in the Chashniksky district?
Last year, ChTUP "LiViSi" opened the first mini-confectionery in Chashniki. The products were so liked by customers that this year a second similar production facility appeared in the district center. Modern equipment is used to produce five types of bread, including bran bread for healthy eating, as well as a wide assortment of sweet confectionery products. Buns, twists, sour cream cakes, cheese flatbreads, cakes, and pastries – all of these are quickly bought up in grocery stores.
– Confectioner with 20 years of experience, Alexandra Murashko, bakes various sweets for the residents and guests of the city, – said **Larisa Khrapskaya, director of the small enterprise**. – She is a mother of three children, accustomed to delighting her loved ones with excellent baking. Perhaps that's why everything we make is hearty, healthy, and deliciously homemade. We also fulfill a considerable number of individual orders – for name days, anniversaries, weddings, and other memorable events. Customers are satisfied.
New jobs have also been created here. All of this, emphasizes Larisa Alekseevna, is thanks to the support provided by the local authorities.
– We assist representatives of small businesses in choosing priority areas of activity, finding potential partners, raw material and sales markets, and labor resources, and provide legal and other consultations, – confirmed **Alexander Sivoshenko, Deputy Chairman of the Chashniki District Executive Committee**. – Over the past five-year period and the first half of the current year, the number of small business entities in the district has increased by 43.4%. Today, this includes 185 organizations and 475 individual entrepreneurs. During the specified period, 13 industrial enterprises have launched the production of electric motors, interior paintings, wire products, aluminum sliding balcony frames, nails, anchor bolts, and other products that
are in demand on the local market and abroad. For example, 90% of the products of OOO "Elektrostal" are shipped for export. In the production arsenal of OOO "PortMan", over 60% consists of innovative products, already well-known in Latvia, Lithuania, and Ukraine. Now, Azerbaijan, Tajikistan, and Oman have been added to these regions.New production facilities are being created. For instance, in the agro-town of Lukoml, in a disused room of a former laundry complex, transferred to the ownership of PUE "Promkomplektsentr" by a district executive committee decision, a workshop for the production of aluminum structures has been organized.
New retail outlets have opened in Chashniki and Novolukoml – "Novosel", "Planeta Tekhno", "Mig", and others.
This year, four legal entities have been registered: three of them are peasant farms that will be engaged in agricultural production, and OOO "Tagma-S" intends to produce textile organizers.
Thanks to such active work, 47 new jobs have been created in the district this year, 14 of which are in new enterprises.
In small businesses in Chashnikshchina, almost 13% of the economically active population of the district is involved. It accounts for 22.6% of industrial production, over 58% of retail trade turnover, 70.7% of goods exports (since the beginning of the year, $5.7 million worth of goods have been shipped outside the country), and 98.5% of services exports. The share of small business entities in the consolidated budget for 2015 was 29.8%.
Elena Telyatko, photos by the author. "Vitebskiye Vesti".