Utility prices to triple

The proposal was made by the country's minister of economy.

Mikalai Snapkou said at a meeting of the Presidium of the Council of Ministers, that the level of reimbursement of state's expenses on public utilities would rise to 50%, BelTA reports.

There's no information about the current level of reimbursement, but minister of housing and utilities Andrei Sharets said in August 2013 that population paid only 16.3% of the state's expenses.

The reimbursement level was 22% in 2012. Taking these data into account, it can be supposed that the level of the utility costs recovery will rise threefold in 2014 and utility prices will triple.

It is possible that the government takes other parameters for calculations and the price growth will be different. It's unknown what the Belarusian president will say on the issue after his recent statements against higher utility prices without a relevant increase in wages.

The government, however, raised the inflation forecast to 14.5% in 2014. Besides the utility prices growth, an increase in public transport fares is also expected, select.by writes.

In spite of the expected inflation rate growth, the National Bank is expected to significantly decrease the discount rate in 2014. At least prime minister Mikhail Miasnikovich insists on this step.

The higher inflation rate seems to be the main new instrument the government wants to use to improve the financial situation in 2014. The rest things won't change. The main factor of the country's economy growth is increasing exports by means of raising the competitive ability of products and applying financial instruments, according to Snapkou.

This topic has been discussed in Belarus for many years, but no real ways to boost the export have been found so far. Nevertheless, the expected growth of export of goods and services in 2014 is set at 7.2%.

Belarus's main income from exports are still based on three industrial sectors – oil refining and petrochemistry, potash fertilisers and iron industry. Taking into consideration the expected decline in revenues from potash fertilisers export, it will be a difficult task to fulil the export growth forecast for 2014.

Photo: krassever.ru