Zlotnikau: If salaries are increased up to 500$ - everything will collapse

According to the economist Leanid Zlotnikau, Belarus has no capacity to immediate increase of salaries by 50%.

Leanid Zlotnikau in an interview to udf.by said that, in his opinion, the investigation of Russian authorities on "solvents-diluents" will end with the introduction of fees for these types of petroleum products. As a result, the Belarusian budget will lose about 2 billion dollars in revenue a year. In addition, the budget will suffer from falling prices for oil and petroleum products in the coming years. The probability that Belarus will get new loans is very small.

Thus, according to the economist, if the authorities of Belarus will bring salaries up to $ 500 to the end of the year, then next year they will have no reserves to keep them at that level.

"The main source of support is the growth of gross domestic product. GDP grew by 2.5%, hence the wages will increase by 2.5%. Labor productivity at the macro level is amounted to 2.5%," - said Zlotnikau."

The main thing is that we do not have prerequisites for the growth of salaries by 50% immediately! In order to maintain the salary at this level in the next year, we need about 13 billion dollars, and we need to give 13 billion dollars. Everything will collapse to hell!" - he added.

In addition, according to the economist, even if the Belarusian authorities will somehow manage to keep wages, then next year it will be even harder to do, because next year we will already need to pay 16 billion dollars of the loans.