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Belarusians waiting for devaluation

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Belarusians waiting for devaluation

72% of respondents think a threat of the Belarusian ruble devaluation is real or possible.

Almost 50% still trust the American dollar more than the Belarusian ruble (26.9%), so more than 62% watch the ruble/dollar exchange rate, show the results of the survey carried out in September 2013 by the Independent Institute of Social-Economic and Political Studies. The number of respondents is 1,510 people, the sampling error doesn't exceed 3%, BelaPAN reports.

“The efforts of the authorities aimed at strengthening the national currency, numerous assurances of impossibility of devaluation, appeals not to listen to 'conscious scoundrels' and not to run to exchange offices do not sound convincing for most people,” sociologists say.

They note that the price growth, the highest one in Europe in the first half of the year, went unnoticed for millions of Belarusians. As much as 27.3% of the respondents said “it's not so bad, it is possible to live”, 51.1% think “life is difficult but still tolerable”, 18% said “it's impossible to stand our misery”. When asked about the attitude to life, 61% answered they “cannot get used to current life” and “have to look for every opportunity to get money for normal life of my family” (almost 55% of Belarusians said they work overtime often or from time to time) or “got used to limit ourselves”, while only 35.5% chose the answer “I live as usual, nothing has changed in the recent years” or “I managed to use new opportunities to improve my life”.

“Though less Belarusians think the country's economy is in crisis (59.8% in June and 57.4% today, while 29.5% in June and 32.4% today have the contrary views) and their incomes increased (the average income, including salaries, pensions, allowances and other payments per family member has increased from $280 to $310), there's a significant decline in the level of optimism: 28.1% of respondents think “the socio-economic situation in Belarus would worsen in the nearest years” compared to 23.7% in the July survey (the number of optimists remains 17.5%),” the authors of the poll say.

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