Lukashenko urged to "wave to investors" who are leaving Belarus.

In his opinion, there is no big problem in this.

"Enterprises that were founded by foreign investors or privatized, and foreign investors got these enterprises, and today (they are mostly from unfriendly countries and others) have left - wave your hand at them, cross yourself that they left you the property," Lukashenko said.

Let's see which of the investors left and what Belarus lost as a result.

Who has already left or downsized

McDonald's

This year in November, it became known that the brand of fast food restaurants is leaving Belarus.

At first, there were talks that now the Russian brand "Vkusno i Tochka" will own the restaurants, but this did not happen.

Now, restaurants generally work without signs.

On December 12, Lukashenka declared that this is now "our enterprise".

, who is close to Lukashenka, is looking after the objects that belonged to McDonald's

.

Ikea

This year, in June, Ikea announced that it was finally leaving Belarus.

The brand did not have its own stores in Belarus, but more than 2 dozen companies related to Ikea worked here.

Belarus earned about 80 million euros annually from cooperation with Ikea (information for 2019).

Nothing is heard about the nationalization of these companies.

However, according to the French investigation Disclose, several former Ikea suppliers were linked to forced labor of prisoners in Belarus.

Ikea denies this information.

"Stadler Minsk"

In May of this year, the Belarusian branch of the Swiss company "Stadler Minsk", which makes trains and electric trains, announced the reduction of staff.

"The production activity of "Stadler Minsk" is carried out to the extent that the imposed sanctions allow.

As already reported, Stadler has taken comprehensive measures, including the transfer of current orders, the production of which is becoming impossible at the Fanipol plant, to its production sites in the European Union and Switzerland, the company's press service reported at the time.

However, the company was not going to leave Belarus completely.

"Lida Beer"

One of the biggest Belarusian breweries also had problems.

In March, the Finnish investor Olvi PLC decided to stop investing in Belarus due to the war in Ukraine.

However, later the legislation in Belarus was changed, and now some investors cannot sell their assets in Belarus.

In this regard, the investors of Olvi PLC could not implement their plans and declared that they will remain in Belarus for the next 12 months.

This is only a part of the Belarusian companies whose business in one way or another encountered problems in Belarus.

And the Belarusian authorities expelled these investors themselves

It often happened in Belarus that the authorities simply took away investors' business.

And it was not related to the political crisis or sanctions.

Here are some examples.

Miory Steel

In 2012, it became known about the ambitious project of a metal rolling plant in the north of Belarus, which will produce white sheet and allow to move away from its import.

In 2015, active construction began.

It was planned that the plant would produce 150,000 tons of sheet metal per year (Belarus needs 30,000 tons).

At that time, 40 hectares of land were set aside for the plant not far from the municipal railway station.

In the plans, the cost of the project was initially 200 million euros.

They were going to launch it in 2016.

Until 2022, it was a private enterprise, the main investor was the Austrian company MMRZ GmbH.

In 2020, the general construction works were just finished.

Meanwhile, the cost of the project has doubled to 400 million euros.

In June 2021, Lukashenka was supposed to come to the plant, but instead the security forces came and detained the entire management of the plant and some employees.

, the general director of the plant

the deputy in finance

were behind bars

.

On August 8, 2022, Alexander Lukashenko came to the plant and announced its nationalization, the state took over the plant's debts.

He also accused the plant's owners of embezzling money.

They say, the enterprise could not cost 400 million euros, although these numbers did not raise questions in the KDC before.

Keramin

The enterprise "Keramin" is associated with businessman

.

The plant began to develop back in 1994, after preferential privatization.

The majority of the shares then went to the directorate and workers of the plant.

Under the leadership of Anatoly Tyutyunov, "Keramin" became a major producer of tiles in the CIS, underwent modernization, attracted investments and new technologies.

The problems began in 2011, when the state decided to sharply increase its share of shares in the enterprise - from 3% to 57%.

In 2011, Anatoly Tyutsiunov left the post of head of the enterprise, he did not comment too much on this event.

And before his resignation, several inspections came to the enterprise at once, which revealed "a number of violations."

Already in the middle of 2014, Lukashenka ordered to "take Keramin under state control and increase the share of shares to 80%".

Spartak and Komunarka

Businessman

came to "Spartak" in 1993, since 1994 the state offered to buy shares of the company.

Later, Marat Novikov became a shareholder of Komunarka.

Until 2012, Komunarka received a number of awards and was recognized as the number one confectionery factory in Belarus.

Until 2012, the American investor Marat Novikov owned 34% of shares in Komunarka and 54% in Spartak.

In 2012, Lukashenko accused the investors of illegal privatization of the factory, called Marat Novikov a "crook" and ordered to take the factories under state control.

The authorities disbanded the supervisory board and appointed their leaders.

Factories were nationalized, and investor Marat Novikov had to move to New York.

And even a collective farm

In 2009, Russian investor

decided to invest in Belarusian agriculture.

He bought out the "Petkovichi" agricultural company on the border of the districts near the Brest highway.

2.5 thousand hectares of land, milk production - it seemed like a good investment of money.

Since 2010, problems with the local authorities began, they demanded to repay the debts that the farm had even before the arrival of the investor.

Some of the debts were repaid, but some could not be paid, because the firms to whom the firm owed no longer existed.

After that, the government caught up with the indicators: not all jobs were saved, milk production did not increase, and the indicator of gross product growth was not met (it was only 107%, but 115% is needed).

As a result, the collective farm was taken away from the investors in 2012 by court decision.