Vasili Shlyndzikau: Belarus to face deep industrial crisis

More than half of Belarusian plants are loss-making.

Vasili Shlyndikau, a former president of Belarus's biggest joint stock company Amkodor, talked to Radio Racyja why domestic manufacturers cannot work effectively and why the state supports them.

“The main problem of Belarusian plants is that of competitiveness. It, for its part, kills initiatives of managers and other employees. It means that the country's economic system should be changed. It has been discussed for many years,” he noted. “I once said that most domestic plants produce only smoke, sometimes more, sometimes less. Those who have profit on paper are still poor. There cannot be any development where poverty exists. They will face problems tomorrow. We will have a very serious industrial crisis.”

According to Vasili Shlyndzikau, the effect of the modernisation “reduces to zero due to absence of initiatives from people”.

“The former head of Borisovdrev wood processing plant stands trial. He is accused of failing the modernisation,” he notes. “I cannot understand one thing: what is the real reason for the prosecution? An investigator has to figure out if the director bought the right boiler, as if the investigator knew much about boilers. By they way, I have a proposal if they want to jail this person. If the prosecutor and investigators studied the problem of Borisovdrev's modernisation, they know how to run the plant. My proposal is to appoint, for example, the judge as general director and the prosecutor and investigators as deputy directors. If the situation is not improved in a year, they should be jailed for the same term. It would be funny if it weren't so sad.”