The uncontrolled inflow of foreign investment in the country can have both positive and negative effects. In this regard, national governments develop and implement measures to attract foreign capital, taking into account the characteristics and interests of a particular state. With a view to better understanding the logic of the FDIs movement, the paper gives a brief description of the FDIs dynamics in the Republic of Belarus, as well as the study of the international experience based on the analysis of the FDIs attraction policies of the Visegrad Group countries (Hungary, Czech Republic, Poland) and Georgia.

Building an optimal tax system is a strategic objective for any state. Under the conditions of the economy openness, both internal and external factors can have a significant impact on the pace of economic development of a country that affects the level of tax collection. The article both emphasizes the importance of tax system improvement and explains the necessity of tax administration optimization. A tax system approximated to optimal one will be less affected by the negative trends and modern tax administration will reduce costs, increase transparency and the taxpayers’ trust level. The tax system analysis was carried out based on studying the Visegrad Group countries’ experience (the Czech Republic and Poland), as well as Georgia and Belarus. As a result, it was observed a single direction of all countries’ development in the area of the tax system improvement, while the presence of the individual characteristics.

The trade wars following the 2014 events in Ukraine affected not only the directly involved participants, but also countries like Belarus that were affected through international trade linkages. According to estimations based on a model outlined in Ossa (2014), these trade wars led to an increase in the trade flow through Belarus and thereby an increase of its tariff revenue. At the same time, because of a ban on imports in the sectors of meat and dairy products, the tariff revenue of Russia declined.

This work suggests steps for reforming of Belarusian SOEs in order to find new sources of growth. Major mechanisms of efficiency increase are introduction and improvement of corporate governance, privatization/ attraction of investors, and bankrupcy and liquidation.

This paper surveys implementation mechanisms and effects of privatization, the reform of corporate governance of SOEs, and the reform of bankruptcy procedure.

Public Sector Performance Index (PSP) and Public Sector Efficiency Index (PSE) are the most accessible ways to estimate the comparative efficiency of public finance on the macroeconomic level. We construct PSP and PSE indices for Belarus and find that the efficiency of public expenditures in Belarus is high compared to other post-Soviet economies.