IISEPS — Independent Institute of Socio-Economic and Politycal Studies

DOES BELARUSIAN ECONOMICS DEVELOP IN THE RIGHT DIRECTION?

Lately, state-run press has been giving exalted comments on the socio-economic results of the past year over. Truly, the statistics shows that almost all economic indicators – including incomes of various population groups – have increased. Thus, the average monthly wages per year (in US dollars) has increased by 31% and the average funded retirement pension – even by 34%. However, the prices have also grown over the past year. In dollar equivalent, they have increased by 16% for all consumer goods and services and by 18% – for the goods making the basket of minimum living budget. In other words, the growth of real incomes is much less than the official propaganda states.

Furthermore, results of the opinion poll among leaders and experts show improvement of economic situation in the country over the past year: those who think it has improved are 1.5-fold more than those who think it has aggravated (See Table 1). Among private sector employees, there are more of those who stated aggravation of the economic situation while among public sector employees – on the contrary, more of those who stated its improvement. This points out to improvement of economic state in the public sector of economics mainly while nothing changed to the better in the private sector.

Table 1. Distribution of answers to the question "In your opinion, how did economic situation in Belarus change for 2004?", %

Variant of answer	All respondents	Public sector employees	Private sector employees
Improved	33	47	20
Didn’t change	45	47	43
Aggravated	22	6	37

Despite favorable economic development, absolute majority of leaders and experts (88%) say that the authorities chose the wrong economic course. As it goes from Table 2, such an opinion very slightly depends on the economic sector the respondents represent. Hence, improvement of economic situation in the country could hardly happen due to internal factors, efforts of government or improvement of work discipline like the state-run mass media proclaim.

Table 2. Distribution of answers to the question "The authorities have many times underlined that the current economic course is the right one. Do you agree with this?", %

Variant of answer	All respondents	Public sector employees	Private sector employees
No, this is the wrong economic course	88	80	97
Yes, this is the right economic course	12	20	3

In the opinion of independent researchers, the basic reason of economic situation improvement is an exclusively favorable current situation at the international energy market that provoked growth of demand for Belarusian goods – those of an average quality but comparatively cheap – in Russia that is a key foreign trade partner of Belarus. If the current situation changes, economic situation may sharply aggravate as the real market reforms in the country have been long ago put on hold.