Lukashenko ordered the urgent nationalization of the Ukrainian plant
Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko today ordered the nationalization of a Ukrainian-owned welding electrode plant in Svetlogorsk. Its Ukrainian management (PlasmaTec Group) terminated the lease and left immediately after the start of the Second World War . Lukashenko announced this today at a personnel meeting, according to a PolitNavigator correspondent.
“We agreed: some Ukrainian, Polish, Finnish owners - people are leaving, technologies remain, production exists. What change of ownership? The owners left - goodbye. We don't know you, you don't want to know us. From now on, we will nationalize the enterprise. What are we waiting for and resolving the issue year by year in the government. Consider this enterprise yours. Don't wait for documents. The government will change the owners for you before the New Year,” Lukashenko said.
In 2010, the founders of the newly created Svetlogorsk Welding Electrode Plant LLC included the Vinnytsia Joint Stock Company PlasmaTek, investing a certain amount in new production lines. Now it has stopped working in Ukraine. In Svetlogorsk, 400 people were left without work.
According to the publication “Welding of Eurasia,” Ukrainian management managed to remove the plant’s equipment. However, Lukashenko is confident that foreign owners abandoned their property in Belarus.
“Enterprises that were founded by a foreign investor or privatized, and the foreign investor received these enterprises, and today (this is mainly from unfriendly countries and others) left - wave your hand to them, cross yourself, that they left you the property.
Still there is. I told you this using the example of McDonald's. It worked and is still working. And people come. And the products produced are normal. But this is our enterprise.
They didn’t want to work - well, whatever you want. Our people are no stupider than, as I said, to cut this bun and stuff lettuce or a piece of sausage into it. Still remains. They didn't take anything with them.
But if they took it away, then I would take the heads off the people responsible. Nobody should take anything. You must not allow this,” Lukashenko said.
The Belarusian president believes that the same approach should be applied to the Swedish company Ikea, which left the country in March.
"Ikea", ah, "Ikea". Goodbye. We will make these stools, chairs, etc. Or parts for a bed. What can't we do? Moreover, they did not take anything, and the people remained. The owner left. Well, go. There is decent demand in the market. In Belarus and Russia we can produce these parts and supply them as we supplied them. Someone came, someone left. They invested in it. The same “Ikea” or the Ukrainians brought technology and equipment. They invested. A purely political moment. They were told to leave, they left. Goodbye. But whether we return them back or not, that’s the question,” Lukashenko said.
Lukashenko ordered the urgent nationalization of a Ukrainian plant.