Bahdankevich: Artificial ruble rate leads to catastrophe

Stability at the currency market is a painful issue for the Belarusian ruler.

Lukashenka repeated his warnings to Mikhail Miasnikovich and Nadzezhda Yermakova at a meeting today.

“I am saying frankly now what I said to the National Bank chief and the prime minister. They both and bankers they chose (ten or fifteen) will answer for stability at the currency market, he said. “Bank are developing independently and living in a market economy as if people and the state exist separately from them. They forget they earn money on Belarus's economy.”

“These remarks shows clearly that the head of state doesn't understand economic processes. The artificially overvalued ruble is the way to catastrophe,” ex-National Bank chief Stanislau Bahdankevich told Radio Svaboda.

“The rate of the currency depends on the state of the economy in civilised and uncivilised world. The euro began to grow when the economic situation in Europe started to improve. The same happens to the dollar. It can be explained with fundamental scientific knowledge,” Bahdankevich says.

“It is possible to keep the rate artificially. But it is possible in a planned administrative economy. This step harms the economy. It's not the fault of the National Bank that the government pays salaries disregarding the fact that plants produce non-competitive products and output doesn't increase. This is the result of Lukashenka's economic model,” the expert noted.