Leanid Zlotnikau: There Is No Sustainable Economic Growth

We should not flatter ourselves and hope for great economic growth.

On Thursday, Prime Minister Andrei Kabiakou, speaking at a meeting with Lukashenka, said that in 2018 the Belarusian economy "shows steady balanced growth," Salidarnasts writes.

According to him, in the first quarter, "all the most important parameters of the forecast approved by Lukashenka were met." For example, GDP growth was 5.1%, exports of goods and services increased by 29.8%, and the foreign trade balance was $ 206 million.

Is the Belarusian economy developing steadily and in a balanced way?

– Firstly, there is no sustainable growth this year, – economist Leanid Zlotnikau noted in his express commentary. – Yes, the growth was high for the first two months and amounted to about 4.6%. But the growth in March was much less than the one in February.

According to the interlocutor, the second problem, is that the increase was provided mainly through trade in oil and oil products.

– That is, it happened due to the Russian factor. This cannot be considered a success, because today prices have risen, and tomorrow they will change – and there will be no growth, – he emphasizes.

And the third point, at which the economist pays attention, is connected with the low efficiency of the Belarusian economy as a whole.

– We do not see any changes inside the country. Has the efficiency become higher? Or has the wood processing stopped to be unprofitable. No it hasn’t. If we take the trade in goods, last year, the negative balance was a little less than a billion dollars. And this year, only in three months, the negative balance was more than a billion. We see that the situation in foreign trade has deteriorated rapidly.

Last year, the growth of the world economy exceeded 4%, and in early 2018, it slowed by 0.4-0.5. That is, the conjuncture is not so favorable. And Belarus feels this already. So we should not flatter ourselves and hope for great economic growth, – Zlotnikau says.