6 free economic zones with liberal business environment consisting in preferential taxation, customs and registration regimes operate in the Republic of Belarus. They were established based on the Decrees of the President of the Republic of Belarus for a period from 30 to 50 years to help increase inflow of foreign investments, implement innovative technologies, build up export, establish import-substituting production facilities and create new jobs. Free economic zones Brest, Minsk, Gomel-Raton and Vitebsk have an operation experience from 6 to 9 years, while FEZ Mogilev and Grodnoinvest formed in 2002 are at the initial stage of their development.

The FEZ operation proved that it was reasonable to establish them for social and economic development of the regions and country as a whole. The attracted foreign investments made it possible to use previously idle and inefficiently used production premises, create new jobs, implement state-of-the-art technologies, build up output and export of goods from FEZ, increase tax and duties deductions to the budget and extra-budgetary funds.

278 organizations were registered as residents of free economic zones of the Republic of Belarus as of 01.01.2006. In 2005, the FEZ residents accounted for 2.2% of the national investments in the fixed capital, 3% of the industrial output and 3.6% of export.

In 2005, USD 85.1 million of foreign investments were channeled to the Belarusian FEZ. Of this amount, 46.3% are direct investments. Over 85% of resources are invested in the industry which accounts for 87.7% of the total operating FEZ residents. Machine-building and metal-working, food, forestry, woodworking and pulp and paper, chemical and petrochemical sectors are attractive for the investors.

The most active foreign investors making up over 87% of the total accumulated foreign investments are Great Britain (20.8%), Russian Federation (16.4%), Germany (13.6%), Poland (10.5%), USA (7.9%), Latvia (5.6%), Cyprus (4.8%), Virgin Islands (2.8%), Austria (2.7%) and Japan (2.5%).

More than 4 thousand new jobs were created in Belarusian free economic zones in 2005. The average staffing number increased by 18.7% compared to 2004 and was estimated to be 27.2 ths people.

In 2005, FEZs exported goods for an amount of USD 580.2 mln. The export per one FEZ employee is almost 4.5 times as high as in the remaining part of the country. In all FEZs, the products included into the State Import-Substituting Program made up 47% of the total sales of made-in items (in 2004 – 38.8%). Over 55.2% of goods were exported from the Republic of Belarus.