Leanid Zaiko: Our Officials Sleep on a Stub

Belarus is in the hands of a short-minded agrarian lobby.

Leader of the Strategy analytical centre, economist Leanid Zaiko told in the interview with Charter97.org.

- Yesterday, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, which has recently allowed GDP growth in Belarus by 1%, made a disappointing forecast: in 2017 the economy will be in recession. What could you say about it?

- This forecast has become one of the most unfortunate examples of an economic analysis. That's how there are politicians of the old generation, so there are economists of the old type. They consider every 1-2%, and that's not the point.

The world is now entering a new industrial revolution. 3D printers, robots, new types of energy become ingrained in our everyday lives.

While the economy of collective farms, meat-grinding and tractors remains, 2% increase or 15% will not be able to solve problems of Belarus. This is true. Minor fluctuations in numbers can be endlessly discussed, it will not make any good. Now we should pay attention at things happening in the USA, China and focus on their achievements.

Therefore, minuses and pluses of old-fashioned points of view are nothing. The world is on the verge of great changes in the entire economy, it is about to turn into the economy of knowledge.

And these "indicators" do not mean anything in modern realities. If we produce 2% more meat grinders or sew "surprisingly beautiful trousers", Belarus will not move forward at all.

- How could you assess the current state of the Belarusian economy?

- Belarus is now sitting somewhere on a stub near a tractor and watching how the Chinese produce ten-core smart phones. At this time the Americans make google-tractors. It is hard to say whether Belarus sits on a stub or sleeps under it. But the fact is that it is left far behind.

The problem is that we do not have this "drive" in the country; the authorities do not want to go mainstream. The country is in the hands of the agrarian lobby, which all its life has leaned on tractors, on potatoes, on winter crops.

Meanwhile, the world steps into the economy of knowledge.

And all these minor fluctuations in production of tractors do not pay any role.