19 March 2024, Tuesday, 9:36
Support
the website
Sim Sim,
Charter 97!
Categories

Payback For 'Freebee' Way

39
Payback For 'Freebee' Way
LEANID ZLOTNIKAU

Belarus is reaping the fruits of Lukashenka’s strategic mistake.

At the end of last week, at a meeting with the governor of Karelia, Lukashenka declared the attacks on Belarusian products unreasonable. “If Russia continues this policy, then we, of course, will go to other markets,” said the dictator.

However, the Belarusian dictator has made such statements far from the first year, but Belarus still does not go to other markets - more than 90% of the exports of Belarusian products go to the Russian Federation.

The markets are divided

According to the opinion of economist Leanid Zlotnikau, which he shared with “Your Country’s Tomorrow”, Lukashenka’s statements about going to other markets are not worth anything.

- Today, all major markets are divided and filled. You can’t just leave the Russian market for the German, for example, or the Chinese, - says economist Leanid Zlotnikau.

This is especially difficult to do, given that the quality of Belarusian products is significantly lower than the European ones.

- In the EU, unlike us, they don’t feed cows with silage. As a result, both meat and dairy products in Europe are of much better quality than the one we have, only because of the diet of the livestock. As for the Asian market - there we lose a lot by price, - says the economist.

Russia is today actually the only large market where Belarusian products are still competitive. However, there are more and more complaints about the quality of our products.

Payback for the “freebee” way

Such a sad situation has developed because of the mistake Lukashenka made many years ago, experts say.

For a long time Belarus received extensive subsidies in the form of cheap energy resources, due to which the cost of domestic products was low, and also had almost unlimited access to the huge Russian market. However, the situation has changed. Now Russia does not see the point in subsidizing the Belarusian economy without deeper integration.

However, if nothing is done, trade wars with Russia will only intensify and we may lose the Russian market.

- Russian subsidies are declining, and our economy remains command. In Belarus, there is practically no competition, a huge number of enterprises operate at a loss and are maintained at the expense of profitable ones, there is cross-subsidization. All this does not contribute to the development of enterprises and the improvement of the quality of their products. Given such trends, the consequences can be fatal, ”says Leanid Zlotnikau.

Therefore, it is urgent to transfer the economy to a market footing and remove trade barriers for the Belarusian goods to enter other markets, experts believe. And most importantly, enterprises need to be given the opportunity to decide for themselves how much to produce and where to sell the products.

- It’s not the state that should decide whether to sell our products to Russians, Belarusians, or the Chinese. The enterprises themselves should understand whether they will remain in the domestic market or enter the external one. The state should only create a maximally favored regime, Leanid Zlotnikau summarizes.

Write your comment 39

Follow Charter97.org social media accounts