Zaika On Lukashenka’s Vorsha “Offshore”: Who Will Go There?

The world assesses the things that will be happening in the Vorsha district negatively.

Economist Leanid Zaika gave his assessment to the state leader’s Decree # 506, which introduces special economic conditions in the Vorsha district in 2019-2023, in an express-comment for Solidarity.

The Decree envisages the decrease of taxes, deductions for pension insurance, making construction norms easier etc. It has also been reported that the authorities plan to use those measures on the development of the Vorsha district, that prove the most effective, in other regions in the future.

Leanid Zaika seems not too enthusiastic about the innovations.

– Something similar was done in China in the 80s. It was called “special economic zones”. True, the Chinese zones were behind the barbed wire, the economist said to Solidarity. - However, the things that will be happening in the Vorsha district are negatively evaluated by experts from international organizations. Because greenhouse conditions are created in such zones: social taxes are not paid, there’s no responsibility for the development of health care, education, etc.

If such measures are transferred to other regions of the country, then we will not have a budget. Education will fall apart, and instead of medicine there will be reception points for giving out dead bodies. Then any president will be easily swept off their post within a few minutes.

Leanid Zaika is also surprised by the presidential decree, since “under the terms of Eurasian integration, all kinds of “zones” should be closed”.

- If we leave the Eurasian integration, then it was necessary to beat fist on the table in the Kremlin on December 25 and 29, when we flew there and burned fuel in vain,” the economist said.

Leanid Zaika commented with irony on the suggestion that special economic conditions in the Vorsha district would attract foreign investors:

- I have been to the Chinese Shenzhen by the sea. There are subtropics, heat, sun, beaches. Foreigners built villas there and partially dragged capital there. In the Vorsha district, I saw neither sea nor beaches. Who will go there?