Economists: Regime To Run Out Of Money

Belarus has been trading at a loss since the beginning of 2016.

Export of fertilizers and oil products ensures about a quarter of foreign currency earnings of our country. Revenues received from exporting them allow subsidizing of unprofitable factories and collective farms.

At the beginning of 2016, the revenue from these "cash cows" has drastically dropped.

"Energy prices have fallen double the price of the previous year," –economic commentator Uladzimir Artsyugin said to "Belsat".

As it turned out, the long-awaited rise in oil prices is causing even greater losses to Belarus. After all, at the same time, the world prices for oil products continue to fall. As a result, the difference between the price for raw oil, which Belarus buys, and the oil products which our country sells, has decreased twice since the beginning of the year. The authorities tried to compensate for the losses by re-exporting of contraband Russian oil. But Moscow cut this sales channel in March.

"Those products which we import - for example, foreign equipment - is getting cheaper not as fast as the production which we can export: prices for it have become much lower," – Vadzim Yosub, a senior analyst in the Alpari company, explains.

Specialists state: the collapse of global cartels producing potassium and oil is not going to make the prices for raw materials return to the past level. And the Russian market will continue to close, including by administrative means.

With the current economic model, oriented at selling raw materials to the west and machinery to the east, Belarusian exports will continue fall decrease, while the import, on the contrary, will continue to become more expensive. This scenario leaves no chance to the population to increase their income.