On March 18^th, 2009 the Belarusian-Swedish seminar “Discover IT Belarus” took place in the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. Its purpose was to extend cooperation between Belarusian and Swedish companies in the field of software development.

Anders Anlid, General Director “Trade” of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, was at the head the Swedish delegation. Among the participants of the seminar were the representatives of the International Council of Swedish Industry, Royal Institute of Technology, Belarusian-Swedish Board of Trade, Swedish state fund of risk capital “Swedfund International AB”, Stockholm Stock Exchange “NASDAQ OMX”, company “Ericsson” and a number of other Swedish IT companies.

In the course of the seminar the Deputy Director of the Belarusian Hi-Tech Park Administration A. Martinkevich introduced the possibilities of the legal regime of the Belarusian HTP, which could act as a favorable environment for the innovative development of high and new technologies. In particular he stated that the Belarusian Hi-Tech Park presents a comfortable environment for the IT business because of its special tax conditions, unprecedented for the European countries and unique opportunities such as the availability of highly qualified and price-competitive engineering and technical personnel.

The representatives of the companies-residents of the Belarusian HTP “ScienceSoft”, “SaM Solutions”, “Applied Systems”, “Pi-consult.by”, “Altoros Development”, “Synesis” and “IntexSoft” presented their software solutions in IT domain and narrated of possible business-models of cooperation, which could be adapted to the specific needs of the client.

Christer Bolestedt, the representative of the Swedish-Finnish company “TietoEnator”, resident of the Belarusian HTP since 2007, highly evaluated the business conditions and possibilities in the Belarusian market.

At the end of the seminar the residents of the Belarusian HTP and the interested Swedish companies held bilateral meetings, negotiations and exchanged contacts.