E-bulletin of IISEPS Center for Documentation, N 12, 2012 – ISSN 1822-5578 (only Russian)
Content:
Introduction
1. Basic trends of December
2. Chronicle of key events
3. Politics
3.1. The president walks where others idle
3.2. The immediate tasks of Russian authorities
4. Economics
4.1. Two Marios and a common European currency
4.2. Fewer people – higher salaries
4.3. Waiting for serious progress
5. Finances
5.1. The pros and cons of buying up currency
6. Our forecast for January
7. From the IISEPS desktop
Introduction:
Dear readers!
Just as we had supposed, inspection tours of the head of state around manufacturing enterprises continued in December, and new details about the condition of the real sector of Belarusian economy did not keep us waiting. In particular, it turned out that originally it had been planned to complete modernization of the timber manufacturing industry already in 2009. However, as the saying runs, modernization hasn’t got forward an inch… It was ordered by the “Imperial Edict” to transfer it from the stage of equipment adjusting to the stage of industrial production in 2013. At that neither the head of state nor representatives of his numerous suite tried to discuss the problems of the timber manufacturing industry in economic categories (the cost price of the future production, the terms of return on investment, etc.). All this bore a strong resemblance to the times of “Developed socialism”, when directors of enterprises thought solely in terms of tons, cubic meters and pieces.
Our prognosis concerning the oil balance proved to be correct, too. Belarus still has not got a guarantee on delivery of 23 million tons of Russian oil. However, judging by the first quarter agreement, republic-the-partisan does not have to take umbrage at its “sponsor”. It was, however, impossible to do without an amusing incident: on December, 21 at a meeting with the students of the Belarusian State University of Informatics and Radio Electronics A. Lukashenko stated that an agreement on oil supply balance in 2013 at the volume of 23 million tons had been reached with Russia. Later on the same day an official explanation disclaiming the information about reaching such an agreement appeared on the site of the RF Ministry of Energy.
Nothing surprising happened at the meeting of the anti-crisis fund of EurAsEC on December, 7 in Minsk. The board of the fund adopted a decision to issue Belarus with the fourth tranche of the financial loan equaling $ 440 million. At that, if one judges by the official announcement, no questions arose by the Russian party. Minsk expected the transfer in December. However, nothing happens so easily in Belarusian-Russian relations: on December, 26 in the course of an on-line conference Chairwoman of the Executive Board of the National Bank of the Republic of Belarus N. Ermakova said that the money would arrive in January. It is not crucial for Minsk. The most important thing is for the money to actually arrive.
IISEPS executive board