Complete glut (Updated)

• 15.04.2009, 8:51

For April 1, finished stock of industrial enterprises in Belarus amounted to 6890.9 billion rubles in actual prices, or 91.1% of the monthly average production output.

For April 1 last year, this figure was 52.9%, for March 1 2009 – 91.3% (6442.6 billion rubles).

The biggest finished stock– monthly average production output balance has formed in the consumer industry – 195.7%, or 586.8 billion (for March 1, the balance was 196%, for April 1, 2008 – 140.2%) and in engineering industry and metalworking production – 166.3%, or 3094.4 billion (167.7% and 83.9% appropriately), AFN reports referring to the Ministry of Statistics.

In forest, woodworking, and pulp and papermaking industries the balance is 109.9%, or 321.2 billion (108.8% for March 1, 2009 and 70.1% for April 1, 2008), in food industry – 96.8%, or 1347.6 billion (96% and 81.3%), in chemical and petrochemical industries – 83.3%, or 768.8 billion (81.8% and 38.9%), in building materials industry – 75.8%, or 262.7 billion (74.8% and 51.2%), in iron industry – 59.9%, or 209.5 billion (61.2% and 5.7%), in fuel industry – 6.1%, or 53 billion (6.4% and 9.7%).

It is evident that the loans, granting Belarus by the International Monetary Fund, and Russia’s subsidies for gas purchasing are spent for output of unclaimed goods that remain in stocks.

Andrei Sannikov, leader of the civil campaign “European Belarus”, commented on the situation in an interview to the Charter’97 press center.

“This index is the most vivid evidence of Lukashenka’s economic “liberalization”. Instead of real reforming of the economy, the Belarusian authorities are trying to plug the hole by loans and producing heaps of unnecessary goods. At that, official Minsk promises to spend credits on significant reforms in the economic sector. The situation is extremely dangerous, because the Belarusian economy, unadjusted to the world market, has reached the catastrophic level. No urgent loans are unable to improve the situation and only create more problems in future,” the politician thinks.

According to Sannikov, it’s absolutely clear that Lukashenka doesn’t fulfil the terms, upon which he is given foreign loans, including IMF credits.

“Donors should think about to what this policy can lead. At the same time we see that expenses on servicing the repressive machine don’t reduce. More and more equipment for demonstration dispersing and political search appear at opposition rallies, expensive Belarusian-Russian military exercises are being prepared. Besides, Lukashenka affords visiting three ski resorts with all his relatives amid the crisis that comes expensive for the Belarusian tax payers,” the politician notes.

“We see how governments, unable to tackle the crisis, resign under pressure of the society in European countries. But the ruling circles in Belarus don’t take any measures and just hide their heads in the sand.

But there is a way out. It is in a fundamental reforming political system of Belarus, to be more precise, in its dismantling,” the leader of the campaign “European Belarus” believes.