Hugo doesn’t want to back his friend

Interesting information about the range of import and export of Belarus with its main trade partners has been published on the website of the Ministry of Statistics.

Looking at the numbers «EuroRadio» found out that the extent of our country’s trade with the USA and China greatly decreased in the first quarter of the year. Not a single Arab country is in the top-15 of best partners, regardless of numerous agreements on cooperation. Venezuela is not there either.

According to the Ministry of Statistics, the bilateral trade between Belarus and the USA halved and totaled only 77.3 million dollars during the first three months of 2008. Trying to explain the reason for such a rapid decrease in turnover, Volha Savelyeva, the chief economist of the department for coordination of foreign trade and creation of a production network abroad of the Ministry of Trade, said only one word: “Belneftekhim.”

“You see, Belneftekhim and all that…” the specialist said.

The trade of Belarus with China decreased by 30% and totalled 69.8 million dollars in the first quarter. However, the officer of the Ministry of Trade did not manage to explain this fact to ERB. She also refused to explain why the trade with Brazil increased almost 5-fold and amounted to 108.7 million dollars.

However, she explained that numerous trade agreements signed with Arab countries and Venezuela had not helped increase the turnover of Belarus with these countries.

“The fact that the country signed agreements with these countries does not mean immediate increase in the volume of trade with these countries. Agreements are agreements and money is money,” Volha Savelyeva noted.

Economist Leanid Zlotnikau did not even want to comment on the decrease in trade volume with the USA. He said everything was clear after the sanctions had been imposed. He also said that the trade with China was different – they can buy just one tractor, for example and start producing its “analogues” several months later.

“What can we supply to China? They have their own machine-building and they produce machines better than Belarusians. We used to be able to supply tractors and trucks to China but now they simply buy one or two samples of tractor and start producing their own trucks later. Chinese are like this! Their chemical industry has also become developed. They also have their own metal production and they export their goods all over the world. Instrument-making, electronics, light industry – we know that China can produce everything. What should we then export?! We export potash fertilizers and China buys the amount it needs. There are some other goods but their volume is not big,” Leanid Zlotnikau said.

What concerns Venezuela, the economist thinks there are two factors that impede our trade with it – the distance and the low purchasing power of this country.

“Venezuela? Its gross domestic product is not bigger than the Belarusian one. The country is not that rich and it is far away. Maybe there will be some trade established there. There is an agreement on supplies of TV-sets but our TV-sets are not that good and cheap and TV-sets produced in other countries. There is no reason for the turnover to increase,” the economist thinks.

According to the economist, we have nothing to offer to Arab states either, especially taking into account the fact that raw materials make up the majority of our exported goods.

“Speaking about the beginning of the year, 71 per cent of products exported to distant countries were oil products and 7 per cent were potash fertilizers. But what oil products will the Arab Emirates buy from us?” Leanid Zlotnikau wonders.

The economist advised to consider the success in the trade with Brazil at the end of the year. It will become clear whether it is the result of an occasional delivery or whether it is the result of stable trade relations. He felt pity for Belarusian officials because Lukashenka was making them find homemade products supplies contracts all over the world. He said it was necessary to improve the quality of Belarusian goods and to improve their variety instead of trying to sell something that nobody needed.

“If there is no private production, if the property belongs to the state, there will be no good results. It does not matter how much you make officials work. Products should be competitive; there should be state investments and companies and transnational corporations that would start producing something here and selling it. It would be another matter. But now…” Leanid Zlotnikau tells.