Residents at the Belarus-China industrial park Great Stone will invest $700m into new projects, Belarus' Deputy Prime Minister Anatoly Kalinin said at a meeting with Hu Zheng, general representative of China Merchants Group in Central Asia and the Baltic states and CEO of the Industrial Park Development Company, on September 1, BelTA reported.

Relations between China and Belarus continue to develop as Beijing uses the small Eastern European state as a bridgehead into Europe. The two governments are mulling setting up a $500mn investment fund and a slew of new joint ventures in addition to the Great Stone park.

The partners say the number of registered new residents at the Great Stone Industrial Park has increased in the wake of a decree signed by the Belarusian president in May to improve business regulations in the park and thanks to the efforts of the Chinese representative office.

As of today, there are 18 companies in the park, which are committing $700mn to new projects. The number of companies is expected to increase to 23 by the end of this year.

The construction of the infrastructure of the park's first phase is almost complete, and just under $100mn has been invested in the Great Stone project so far.

In the next stage, which begins now, the construction of manufacturing facilities will begin. Several projects are currently at the final commissioning stage: facilities of the logistics subpark of China Merchants CHN-BLR Commerce and Logistics, and a manufacturing facility producing supercapacitors of Chengdu Xinzhu Silk Road Development.

The partners are also discussed further steps towards establishing a joint construction and design institute to accelerate the implementation of investment projects in the park, which is supposed to be finished this year.