17th April 2012, Warsaw - The second day of co-organized by the Center for Social and Economic Research Seminar ‘Privatisation and private entrepreneurship in Belarus – scope for international assistance’ commenced with a speech from Krzystof Stanowski, the president of the Polish Solidarity Fund PL. Prof. Piotr Kozarzewski, renowned scholar on privatization in post-Communist countries and CASE expert, was one of the panelist in the first of the two working groups held at the seminar. The working group discussed the challenges, prospects and reforms needed to make Belarus stronger, sounder and fully-fledged market economy. Moderated by Sierz Naurodski, Executive Director of CASE Belarus, the working group gathered four more panelists from leading international organizations/institutions:

• Andrea Mario Dall’Olio, Senior Economist, Finance and Private Sector Development, World Bank
• Antonio Somma, Acting Head of the OECD Eurasia Competitiveness Programme, Directorate for Financial and Enterprises Affairs, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development
• Ulrike Hauer, Head of Sector at ENP Sectoral Division at EEAS, European External Action Service
• Dzmirti Babicki, CASE Belarus Research Fellow

Brief presentations delivered by the experts sparked animated debate with the audience. SME sector in Belarus, macroeconomic policy challenges, privatisation impediments, structural reform and similarities with privatisation processes in Poland were among the main issued raised during the seminar.