What happened to Belarus’s once-thriving tech-industry?

Before the anti-government protests that shook Belarus in 2020, a thriving tech-industry existed in the country. fresh events specified as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine have shown that a plateau in output is all but assured for at least the next fewer years. Overall, it appears that the country has suffered from a severe brain drain as talented workers have fled the authoritarian state.

Belarus was erstwhile called the “Silicon Valley of east Europe”. From 2005 to 2016, exports of IT services and products grew 30 times over. The share of IT exports in Belarus’s full exports of goods and services increased from 0.16 per cent to 3.25. In 2021 the IT sector was contributing almost a 3rd of GDP growth. However, after the outbreak of Russia’s full-scale war in Ukraine, the situation changed dramatically.