Leanid Zlotnikau: “Financial situation in Belarus will get worse. It’s obvious”
- 4.11.2008, 11:27
Independent analysts don’t exclude that volume of investments to Belarus may decrease next year.
Minister of economy Mikalai Zaichanka said investment rate had increased by 25 per cent in 2008 YoY. According to him, main gain was noticed in January–September – over 23 per cent. It was the time when the Belarusian economy hasn’t met consequences of the global financial crisis. The minister is confident about fulfilling of the plan. At the same time he said he worried that according to the investments project monitoring system, allocated resources are not used in 80 projects, of which 53 are in the innovation development state programme. However, independent experts think that the problem is in the very planning system, Deutsche Welle reports.
According to economist Leanid Zlotnikau, potential investors at the last moment refused to put money in some projects for their reasons. But these plans have already been included in the Belarusian innovation development programme that caused failure of planning occurred:
“Plans were made, under which some people from England or from Cyprus were to put money, but they didn’t,” the economist said.
According to Leanid Zlotnikau, Gomelsteklo company faced this situation. As a result, they had to find new resources for modernisation, but use investments. Zlotnikau says that a main problem of innovation planning was the fact that the government didn’t control all components of this plan in order them to be fulfilled.
In Zlotnikau’s view, rate of foreign investments will decrease next year in spite of the making plans:
“It will be reduction. There will be no possibilities to state new constructions due to the crisis. The financial situation in the country will get worse. It is obvious,” the specialist states.
Facilities, which would have been spent for investments, will be used for urgent problems, namely for salaries, electric power supply, raw materials purchasing. In other words, the funds will be spent for trying to survive today, not for process stock for future:
“Investments are possible only at the stage of a rise after crisis. We will have no investment in the recession, which is expected to last until the end of the next year, especially in Europe,” Zlotnikau thinks.