Belarus has reportedly secured a US$280.8m loan from the Export-Import Bank of China to develop the country’s communication and broadcasting satellite services.
The loan was part of a package from the Chinese bank that will also provide $322m to…
Belarus has reportedly secured a US$280.8m loan from the Export-Import Bank of China to develop the country’s communication and broadcasting satellite services.
The loan was part of a package from the Chinese bank that will also provide $322m to construct a highway, reported the state-owned national news agency, the Belarusian Telegraph Agency.
The bank and the National Academy of Sciences of Belarus, which is closely associated with the country’s new space agency, were unable to comment before the press deadline.
Belarus’s first satellite, the remote sensing BKA spacecraft, was launched with Russian support and carried on a Soyuz rocket in mid-2012. Belarus reportedly paid around US$17m of the project’s US$100m cost, and the country’s government has been cited saying it planned to produce its own satellites.
Recent local reports have highlighted Belarusian attempts to invite China to also support its space efforts.
Both Russia and China have been making significantly headway in helping nascent space nations realise their ambitions, including having their own telecoms satellites.
The Belarusian government’s first attempt to launch its own satellite ended in disaster in 2006 when the Russian Dnepr rocket that was carrying it failed after takeoff. That satellite, called BelKA, was also a remote sensing spacecraft.
