Week’s Figures: Statistical Dust :: Charter'97 :: News

Readying to rapport before Alexander Lukashenko, the Cabinet of Ministers outlined the outcomes of the Belarusian economic performance in the first quarter of the year. In general, the economy preserves its temperament and incurable inclination to the fall in efficacy.

Ahead of the rapport’s presentation, Prime Minister Gennady Novitsky called on the government’s members to be vigilant. “You are supposed to notice the weak points in economy, quickly react to them and pass measures on the situation’s improvement”.

The problems of financial insolvency of most companies are associated by the government with the soaring cost of the credit resources, earmarked by the banks, rather than with their own treatment of small and medium business. According to the government, the entrepreneurship of Belarus is stimulated enough, while rent agreements get sophisticated and registration of legal entities along with their licensing gets simplified. However, as far as there’s no statistics on the number of registered entrepreneurs in the reported parameters, the government can well dwell in this pleasant delusion for a while.

In course of the first quarter of the year within the economic liberalization’s framework in order to thwart the unfair competition, the government fought for de-monopolization of certain types of commodities – fish, sugar etc. As a result, in January alone the price on sugar rose by 10%. Fish didn’t get any cheaper either, despite the long promised reduction in the number of intermediary chains and policy on bringing to order the importers.

The accrued average monthly salary of the workers in January-February amounted to 213,1thsd rubles, increasing in comparison with November 2002 by as much as 9,6thsd rubles. As a matter of fact, since late 2001 this parameter of the national welfare fluctuates with the minimal amplitude around the promised $100. They even developed the following system: salaries sharply go uphill before the presidential elections, while in between them the government is trying to find out how they can keep their word.

Salary indebtedness on March 31, 2003 constituted 43,9bln rubles, rising by 1,5 times as compared with the size of the debt in late February. The salary’s purchasing capacity kept falling: from 152,4% in December 2002 to 139,7% in February 2003, while in the budget economy sector – from 139,7% to 125,8% accordingly.