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Accident in the Lukashenka's Economy: Latest Statistics

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Accident in the Lukashenka's Economy: Latest Statistics

The Belarusian social and economic model faces huge problems.

Official data on development of the national industry prove it, well-known Belarusian expert Andrei Eliseyeu writes on bel.biz.

Our TV sets are becoming the part of the history

Some sectors of the Belarusian industry are falling into oblivion right now. In particular, this applies to the production of TV sets, which dropped drastically over the past three years. Last year only 22 thousand of them were produced in the country. Less than a thousand of them were exported.

To compare: 594 thousand of TV sets were produced in 2012, until 2010 the main producer was Vitsebsk Vityaz. The story of Vitsebsk television factory established in late 1970s is a vivid example of hopeless competition with world producers. Only a few years ago the factory began to produce medical and household appliances and lost precious time.

The Turn of Bearings and Trucks Is to Come

90% of production capacity is available only in a few sectors: oil production (98.9%), fertilizers (98.7%), pharmaceuticals (96.7%), finished steel (93%), washing machines (99.5%) and refrigerators (99.5%). Food sector has also good indicators.

At the same time the production of many national exported goods dropped that most of the production capacity is idle. And if the production of tires, transformers and cement remains at least at 50%, 80% of production of trucks is idle, and of bearings - 93%!

Capacity Utilization for Production of Various Products,%

These numbers veil a tragedy of thousands of employees. Minsk and Gomel Plant of Bearings, "Integral", "Vityaz" and others, once greatest industrial enterprises in the region are on their last legs.

The situation with "Krichevtsementshifer", "Krasnoselskstroymaterialy" and "Belarusian Cement Plant" is almost the same. Over the past few years there were invested hundreds of millions of dollars and it seems that it's no use.

They are victims of a losing economic model that the Belarusian authorities put forward two decades ago. In principle, it was clear then that state-owned enterprises with a low level of management, restrictions on staff optimization and other political things, hopes of their managers on the infinite budget sops doomed to extinction in an unequal battle with the private, more innovative and responsive foreign competitors.

Only the time when all these industrial sectors are to go west one by one has been questionable. The jig is up, it has been driven to by the crisis in Russia. It plays requiem for many Belarusian state-owned enterprises.

It is noteworthy that the number of foreign-owned enterprises drastically decreased last year - from 450 to 371. It looks like a part of overseas property owners has realized that the crisis in the country is to stay here for long, and hurried to retreat without tempting the fate.

The Old Social Model Goes Into Oblivion

Long-term state line to maintain excess employment in public enterprises contrary to economic logic is longer viable.

Companies take layoffs, meanwhile their personnel departments regularly send fictitious vacancy announcements to employment offices. It is done for the state hierarchy could report on allegedly existing tens of thousands of vacant jobs in the country.

Average number of workers employed in the industry fell by 150 thousand over five years - up to 924 thousand in 2015.

The Average Number of Employees in the Industrial Sphere, Thousands of People

Laid-off workers are offered either to get miserable unemployment payment or seek jobs abroad. This is what many Belarusians do, they increasingly turn their attention towards Poland. It seems that it is the high time for the long-standing ideological construct about "socially oriented model of the market economy" to take a rest on the scrapyard of history next to the Vityaz TV sets.

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