Stanislau Bahdankievich: No loan will save Belarusian economy

Belarus’ economy needs structural reforms, not another loan.

The opinion came from a former head of the National Bank Stanislau Bahdankievich as he commented for the charter97.org web-site on the rescheduling of the six tranche of the Eurasian Economic Community’s loan.

“Little time is left until the end of the year and everything negative have already happened. We see the failure to meet the main indicators in terms of output growth and GDP, we observe the decrease of the volumes of foreign reserves and much more. The continuing galloping inflation hits the population painfully, especially the part that receives fixed incomes: pensioners, teachers, doctors and students. Debts are also increasing. By the latest data the country’s gross debt has surpassed 37 billion dollars, which is 3 billion more than in the beginning of the year”, - the economist noted.

The expert is convinced that even if Minsk now received the last tranche of the loan from the Eurasian Economic Community’s Anti-crisis Fund, this would not change the situation in general.

“Probably, it would be added to reserves, and the decrease in reserves would account for 1 billion instead of 1.5. But this does change anything and does not save Belarusian economy. The salvation for us is a new economic policy and reforms, which would start with political modernization, the essence of which would be the accountability of the authorities before the voters. There is no such accountability, that is why the budget is discussed without deep explanations: we cannot clearly see how much will be spent on new palaces and other nonproduction facilities. Privatization programs are considered individually, not for the whole economy. Some decisions are suddenly made in high offices to sell shares of certain enterprises to Russian oligarchs etc. The answer is not in the amount, but in structural changes, which are not there”,- Stanislau Bahdankievich emphasized.

We would remind that the head of the National Bank Nadzieja Jermakova reported today that Belarus would not receive the last tranche of the loan from the Eurasian Economic Community’s Anti-crisis Fund in the amount of $440 million before the end of the year, having announced a new possible deadline – first quarter of 2014.

At the same time she did not explain the reasons for the delay of the tranche, but the things is not about rescheduling: it is the current negative state of Belarus-Russia relations that influences the decision of providing Belarus with another portion of money, as does not meeting of such indicators as loan growth in the economy (exceeded) and the amount of foreign reserves (decreased), leave alone privatization, increased utility and transport tariffs etc.