Leanid Zaika: Change Of Political Authorities Needed

Only radical measures and dismissal of government could save the country’s economy.

Economist Leanid Zaika has expressed such opinion in an interview for the charter97.org website. He has commented upon the information that the country’s GDP made $ 47, 2 billion in the dollar equivalent in the recent year, having fallen to the level of the year 2007. The expert is convinced that Belarusians can already feel the consequences of this decrease.

— The consequences are already happening. In 2014, we had a GDP of $ 76 billion. This year, I predicted the GDP of $46 billion, and we had $47. This means, we have $ 30 billion less, given annual loss. What more consequences do you mean? The decrease of wages (they make about $300 today), falling of the life level, escalation of problems connected with repayment of external debts ($ 5 billion this year), and deterioration of the financial situation in general.

Broadly speaking, the government owes us an answer to the question: why did they pursue such economic policy that Belarus only managed to achieve the result of $47 billion? In such situations governments usually resign, a country discusses all the existing issues and thinks about finding the way out of the situation. A broad public discussion is held, a country changes the political authorities and finds the best possible way to move on.

Just realize, admitting we could raise our GDP by 1-2% means that we might have the index of the year 2014 for 50 years to come. So, the issue requires solving!

— Why does it seem so important that such decrease of the GDP happened in dollar terms?

— It’s the most important point – in dollar terms! Because, when we measure the economy in dollars, we get real results on competitiveness of our goods, on real wages. This is an unbiased assessment of the situation.

— Will such GDP decline affect the investors’ attitude?

— Forget the investors, Belarus needs to stimulate the domestic economic activity, investors remain much less important at the moment. No investor could help in that! Just imagine: we have lost $ 30 billion on the production of final goods and services. No investors could save us here. In general, investments should be only internal - the development of own production and business, avoiding dependence on oil. Radical measures are needed!

— Can we say the economy reached the pre-default state?

— No, it’s rather, when a country produces $30 billion less it means a tragic mistake in the economic policy had been made.