In Vitebsk, new small and medium-sized enterprises are more often appearing in the service sector

The share of the service sector in the structure of economic activities of small and medium-sized businesses in Vitebsk has reached 20%. This was announced today at a press conference dedicated to the World Entrepreneurship Week by Zinaida Koroleva, Deputy Chairperson of the Vitebsk City Executive Committee.

"Analyzing the statistics, I was pleasantly surprised. In previous years, the entrepreneurial sector was all about trade, but now 20% is services. Creative people with new original ideas are entering business. And associations of entrepreneurs, the small business incubator, and other entities of the support infrastructure for small and medium-sized businesses help initiative people bring their ideas to life," emphasized Zinaida Koroleva.

As for other sectors, trade accounts for 30%, manufacturing activities - 12%, transport services - 8%, and construction - 6.5%. Zinaida Koroleva stressed that in recent years, small and medium-sized businesses have been exerting an increasing influence on the socio-economic development of Vitebsk. The volume of industrial production by medium and small organizations in 2014 amounted to about 8.2% of the total industrial production volume in the city, revenue from sales of products (goods, works, services) was at the level of 18.6%, and the profitability of sold products was 7.7%.

"This year, we aim to maintain the achieved level. It is not easy - the year is difficult, a crisis year, and only the joint, interested work of business and government will allow us to preserve positive development trends," noted the Deputy Chairperson of the City Executive Committee. She added that the City Executive Committee constantly cooperates with all structures for the development of entrepreneurship. In January-September of the current year, 2,139 new jobs were created in Vitebsk, including 951 by small business entities, 1,188 by individual entrepreneurs. 43 subsidies totaling over Br700 million were allocated for the organization of entrepreneurial and craft activities.

As examples of effective activities of small and medium-sized enterprises, the following organizations were named: OOO "Dipol", OOO NPC "Evropribor", ODO "Gals Optiks", ChP "Novy Vek Spring", OOO "Chasprom", OOO "Gateyafarm", SZAO "Vitebsk Machine-Building Plant "Novmash", etc.

Alena Tikhonova, BELTA.