Vadzim Iosub: Neither Russia Nor Rise In Oil Prices Will Save Belarusian Economy

The expert named the main reasonы of the economic crisis in Belarus.

In his New Year greeting Aliaksandr Lukashenka tried to blame our neighbors for the difficulties that Belarus is facing now.

According to the dictator, we "have become hostages of the economic situation that our traditional economic partner are experiencing." Obviously, he was speaking of Russia which has long been a generous donor and the main market for Belarus.

The Senior Financial Analyst at the Alpari company Vadzim Iosub noted in his interview with RFI, that we should not exaggerate the impact of the Russian crisis on the Belarusian one. Our economic model has completely exhausted itself and will continue to fall even if our neighbor's economy will start to grow.

– Problems in the Russian economy and low cost of oil were not the main reasons that have caused the crisis in Belarusian economy. The crisis was caused by the extremely ineffective structure of Belarusian economy, – Iosub said. – Even growth of Russian economy and stable oil prices will be of little help for the Belarusian economy if it preserves such structure. In the best case the economy will stop its fall and stagnation will start, but no growth can be expected. Talks about the reorientation to other markets and injection of some foreign investments are, roughly speaking, talks to feed the poor. There's no production in the Belarusian economy, which can be interesting for someone in the world at current production costs. Queues of foreign investors who wish to invest and perhaps bury their money in the Belarusian economy are also not seen.

According to the financier, if the reforms start at the beginning of 2017, we can expect a small but steady growth in three – five years. "But no political will to carry out reforms has been seen so far," – Vadzim Iosub said.