Alexander Lukashenko, president of the Belarus Republic, has signed a decree on restructuring the budget debt of Vitebsk OAO "Krasny Oktyabr", which had been long pressed by the factory leadership and the region authorities. The debts proved insurmountable obstacle for registering the joint Belarus-German venture on the basis of the unprofitable enterprise. According to the next and, as stockholders believe, the final project version, German "Evimex" and Belarus "Marco" companies will be it's co-founders. These two firms will together possess 86% of the charter fund. The rest 15% will be retained by "Krasny Oktyabr". At the same time the third part of its production capacity will pass to the new Joint venture. Though the deal on alienation of this property has not been approved yet - stockholders meeting has not been held because of the absence of quorum. The next attempt is scheduled for the beginning of February, and in the opinion of Eduard Naryshkin, president of Bellegprom concern, who represented the interests of the state, the necessary decision will be taken. The future of the light industry, he believes, belongs to the small enterprises, and therefore restructuring of production processes will be accelerated.
Stockholders of the footwear factory will yet have to resolve tenement issues with enterprise Belwest. It looks like prolongation of the leasing agreement with the right to redemption will be approved. Marco president Nikolai Martynov hopes that registration process will be finished in a very short period, and in March-April the new enterprise "San Marco" will be able to start working.
The total amount of gradual investments reaching up to 1.9 million euro, the founders estimate to reach annual production capacities of 500 thousand pairs per a year. To save time, new footwear collection is being worked out now with active participation of Italian designers. Active marketing policy is being carried out to promote the future production for the Italian market. And Marko's president has no doubt that the enterprise will start producing the best women's footwear in Belarus.

Source: Bealrus newspaper, № 4 Author: Vadim Borshevsky
18.02.2003