What Planet Do Belarusian Officials Live On?

The verticals have long been suspected of being disconnected from Belarusian reality.

However, even so they managed to surprise last week. Salidarnasts reviews three statements that cannot fail to impress.

Officials Believe in Development of Tourism

At the national seminar on tourism development in Hrodna, Deputy Prime Minister Ihar Piatryshenka and the head of the region Uladzimir Karanik told a lot about how to attract foreign guests to the country.

Unfortunately, they failed to pass on the words of the officials, how it can happen in a situation when the whole Europe is shocked by the incident with the Ryanair airplane and when it decided to break off air links with Belarus.

In a situation when our country is perceived as a territory, where pirates or something like that are operating.

And it would be even more interesting to know what officials think about how they can attract tourists from Poland and Lithuania, the countries neighboring Hrodna Region - the countries the Belarusian authorities have accused of everything.

What kind of tour are they willing to offer Poles in Hrodna while Andrzej Poczobut and Anzhalika Borys are in jail?

"Deputy" Believes that Belarus Feeds the Whole World

Liliya Ananich has made it clear that Belarusians won't suffer from the imposed Western sanctions because of the actions of the authorities. What is her confidence based on? Her argumentation is worth quoting.

- Over all these years we have not stopped making good, decent products, which will be needed, if not in the West, then in the East. Today we feed the whole world with our agricultural products. Look at the addresses of our, so to say, vectors, where our products are headed.

We have done so. We do not want to disappoint the "deputy", but the export of the Belarusian agricultural output varies annually in the range of USD 5,5 bln. This figure cannot surprise our neighbors, taking into account the scale of the country.

The geography of the export is as follows: about 85% falls on Russia and the EAEU countries, less than 5% - on the European Union and another 10% - on other countries.

The words "we feed the whole world" clearly do not fit here.

The Governor Believes that the "Great Stone" Still Has Prospects

About ten years ago, there appeared an idea to create a Belarusian-Chinese industrial park "Great Stone" to produce high-tech products and export them to the EU and the EAEU.

Aliaksandr Lukashenka used to say that exports would reach $50 billion annually.

For this purpose, they created a super privileged tax regime for the park. And what happened? It's funny to say, in 2020, the revenue of the Great Stone residents was 189 million Belarusian rubles (they decided not to mention the amount of profit).

At a recent meeting, the governor seemed to acknowledge the failure of the project: "Preferential conditions are pretty decent in the park". And what conclusion did he come to? A draft decree "aimed at improving the investment climate" has been prepared.

Tax incentives in the Great Stone are already grandiose; it is obvious that the Chinese do not see any prospects in Belarus - especially taking into account the authorities' confrontation with the Western countries and sanctions on their part.

And yet Lukashenka believes that this is not the point at all, but that the Great Stone needs even more benefits to prosper...