Lukashenko: IT industry of Belarus, Russia should not serve the needs of foreign tech giants

The IT sector of Belarus and Russia should develop their own products rather than work in the interests of major foreign companies, Belarusian President Aleksandr Lukashenko said at a meeting with Russian Ambassador to Belarus Boris Gryzlov, BelTA has learned.

“I think that Russia and Belarus can do a lot here. We need to encourage our IT specialists to produce end products, rather than to be at beck and call of big companies. It is clear that this is about billions of dollars. Yet, we need to create a finished product from scratch and implement it here, in the post-Soviet space, first of all, in Belarus and Russia. There is room for growth here,” the head of state said.

He noted that it will certainly require certain amount of funds, but this is not gigantic money. “We can find it together. We can use the Union State budget for this,” the Belarusian leader noted.