The Economy Hits Back

Who opened the eyes of our neighbors to the dubious records of car imports to Belarus.

Poland, Latvia, and yesterday Lithuania stopped allowing conditionally expensive cars into Belarus. And why they decided so is not difficult to guess.

Because after the EU banned the sale of expensive cars to Russia, imports of cars to Belarus from the EU increased fourfold. This amazing coincidence of completely random circumstances happened.

Besides cars, a lot of other things have grown there that cannot be imported to Russia, but can be imported to Belarus. It's just that the cars have grown the most.

And, again, by an amazing coincidence of absolutely random circumstances, along with the growth of imports from Europe, Belarusian exports to Russia grew at a record level. About $2.3 billion last year. And Belarus, by the way, imported about $2 billion worth of cars.

And everything is going to the point that now the neighbors are going to take away Belarusian export records. At least they have already begun to take away automobile records. The neighbors turned a blind eye to these records for a year and a half. But the Belarusian authorities rattled tanks on the border for so long that their eyes were finally opened.

And now, it looks like Belarusian import substitution will have to set export records to Russia without imports from Europe. And if we subtract European imports from the record growth of Belarusian exports to Russia, then little will remain of this record growth.

Moreover, competition has returned to the Russian market. And it turned out that the domestic manufacturer is good at selling its goods in Russia, as long as no one interferes with the domestic manufacturer.

And when manufacturers from China, Turkey and India came to Russia, it turned out that selling was not as good as before.

And then the Belarusian authorities themselves reduced the prices of their potash fertilizers. Because the Belarusian authorities decided that they had nothing to lose in terms of their reputation anyway. Therefore, they sold their potash fertilizers at indecent dumping prices.

As a result, world prices for potash fertilizers have become so dumping that there is nowhere to dump further.

And Belarusian companies could survive all this if they still had a margin of safety. But the Belarusian authorities have spent the safety margin of Belarusian companies on fulfilling their inflation plans and fair prices.

Over the year, the profits of Belarusian companies fell by a third, and losses increased by 75%. Because the principle of fair prices is good for a sense of moral superiority. And it does not contribute to the financial health of companies.

All of these, of course, are problems that can be solved. At least for now, these problems have not yet begun to become apparent. Abolish price regulation, abandon the records of your GDP and agree to a slight stagnation. In short, recognize the supremacy of the laws of economy over yourself.

But the Belarusian government is structured in such a way that the law is not for them. In the space of their imagination, they defeated not only NATO. They also defeated the laws of economics and common sense. Because the Belarusian authorities have the GUBOP and the State Control Committee for any economic law.

Therefore, when exports to Russia now began to fall, Ambassador Dzmitry Kruty immediately knew what to do. It is necessary to find someone to blame and “make proposals for punishment.” Apply, so to speak, non-economic methods of stimulating economic processes.

But the economy, a merciless bitch, always hits back.

Telegram channel “Letters To Daughter”