E-bulletin of IISEPS Center for Documentation, N 5, 2014 – ISSN 1822-5578 (only Russian)
Content:
Introduction
1. Basic trends of May
2. Chronicle of key events
3. Politics
3.1. Nonsensical buffet dinner
3.2. On vegetation phases and VIP
4. Economics
4.1. The US get plants away from China
4.2. Sanctions without identification marks
4.3. Industrial policy in the spirit of the 30’s
5. Finances
5.1. Economic growth rate vs. percentage rate
6. Our forecast for June
7. From the IISEPS desktop
Introduction:
Dear readers!
On the eve of the opening of the World Hockey Championship A. Lukashenko assured the president of International Ice Hockey Federation Rene Fasel that the oncoming tournament would be the best one in the history of world championships. We are not here to judge if that prediction came true. But as we had supposed the political part of the sport event was minimized. After the end of the championship the chairman of Belarusian KGB V. Vakulchik told journalists that a terroristic act was prevented. This message didn’t cut it to a sensation. First, the championship was already over. Second, the message of V. Vakulchik lacked of striking details, and you cannot count on a sensation without it.
In full concordance with our supposition there was neither a “plenum” on the results of the interdepartmental working group’s research on agro-industry reformation, nor a governmental report after the first quarter of the year, nor an “extensive anti-corruption report”. Making local shows against the background of an international show would mean demonstrating the lack of professionalism. But the head of state’s administration has a huge experience of forming public opinion, so it wouldn’t be reasonable to expect such a failure. So it didn’t happen.
A. Lukashenko didn’t manage to take all the issues off the table before the creation of the Eurasian economic union. We had evaluated V. Putin’s chances on taking the hard line higher than A. Lukashenko’s chances to completely exclude “requisitions”. But one more Belarusian-Russian confrontation ended up with a compromise. Freshly-made Eurasians decided to share the taxes received from selling oil products made of Russian oil in two halves.
On the 7th of May the dollar rate achieved the psychological barrier of 10 000 Belarusian rubles on Belarusian Currency and Stock Exchange. It was expected, so there was no panic among people. Still, the net currency purchase once again turned out to be positive, and it was twice as high as in April: $ 117.3 million in May vs. $ 57.8 million in April.
In full concordance with our supposition there was neither a “plenum” on the results of the interdepartmental working group’s research on agro-industry reformation, nor a governmental report after the first quarter of the year, nor an “extensive anti-corruption report”. Making local shows against the background of an international show would mean demonstrating the lack of professionalism. But the head of state’s administration has a huge experience of forming public opinion, so it wouldn’t be reasonable to expect such a failure. So it didn’t happen.
A. Lukashenko didn’t manage to take all the issues off the table before the creation of the Eurasian economic union. We had evaluated V. Putin’s chances on taking the hard line higher than A. Lukashenko’s chances to completely exclude “requisitions”. But one more Belarusian-Russian confrontation ended up with a compromise. Freshly-made Eurasians decided to share the taxes received from selling oil products made of Russian oil in two halves.
On the 7th of May the dollar rate achieved the psychological barrier of 10 000 Belarusian rubles on Belarusian Currency and Stock Exchange. It was expected, so there was no panic among people. Still, the net currency purchase once again turned out to be positive, and it was twice as high as in April: $ 117.3 million in May vs. $ 57.8 million in April.
IISEPS executive board