80% Belarusian Companies Fall Under Bankruptcy Procedure :: Charter'97 :: News

The Federation of the Belarusian Trade Unions says that over 80% of domestic enterprises are to be subject to bankruptcy procedures. The Federation believes that the situation in economy is getting real rough. The problems are on the rise and have clear outlines now. For instance, the share of the unprofitable companies, that operate at the loss, is acutely going uphill. At this point their percentage constitutes 35,1% of all companies. Last year this index amounted to 22%.

Meantime, there happens a fall in the companies’ level of solvency, which hardly exceeds 9,5%, although last year it rested on the level of 12,7%. In agriculture this number reaches 3,5%, in municipal household – 1,7%, which testifies to complete insolvency of these industries. According to deputy chair of the Federation of trade unions Frants Vitko, 80% of all companies are candidates for the bankruptcy procedures due to their low solvency rate.

Understandably, this sharpens to the full the problem of paying out the salaries both in the size and time perspectives. The nominal monthly wage dropped in September-August from 145,9 thousand to 141,3 thousand rubles, while the real wage fell even more.

Low level of solvency of companies and the absence of stable sources of salary payment contributed to a large degree to the 20 times rise of indebtedness, which constituted by October 31 more than 45bln. rubles. Its largest part – over 32bln. – falls on the agricultural sector.

As a result, there occurred a contracting employment problem. According to the Ministry of statistics, in January-August 2001 the number of temporarily employed workers amounted to 170,2 thousand people (4,5% of an average monthly number of the employed). Another 177,4 thousand were let on a holiday leave upon the employers’ initiative (4,7%), while over a third of workers – 64,6 thousand – received no monitory confiscation.