Roll-back of salaries in Belarus

Belarusian wages following oil prices dropped to the level of 2009 year.

Experts compare the situation to 1980s. Oil prices keep falling for the eighth week already. Such situation took place in 1986. Then oil prices rolled back from $30 to $10. And they remained constant for 4 years. Tectonic geopolitical processes then became the reason for the state of the primary commodity market. In fact, the Soviet Union bankrupted and collapsed, Nasha Niva reports.

Current situation is worse, even if taking into account depreciation of dollar.

A barrel of Brent oil fell to $46.06 on Friday morning. American WTI fell to $40.21, world information agencies inform. This is the lowest price since 2009. World financial and economic crisis was the reason for previous reduction of oil prices. Now the situation differs. New technologies conduce extraction of fossil fuels, and energy saving has led to cost cut.

Saudi Arabia could reduce supply of oil in the market, but it does not want to do it for some reason. Other parties in the game - Russia, Venezuela, Iran - cannot afford it because of limit resources. The USA do not reduce oil and gas extraction either. Companies are trying to cover investments for shale oil and gas and do not give up on wells, even if the revenue decreased.

As a result, those countries depending on oil and gas import have profit. Economies of Germany, France, Spain have revived. China and the USA have increased oil reserves to a record level.

At the same time, the Russian economy continues its downturn, dollar costs almost 70 Russian rubles.

The Belarusian economy, closely bound to the Russian one and based on oil and gas refining, suffer problems as well. After yesterday's trading Belarusian ruble reached Br16 500 per $1. It is the absolute depreciation leader in Europe both in 2010-2015, and 2000-2015. Salaries fell to the level of 2009 along with currency.