Business news

18 Oct 2023

Deputy minister: Belarus’ GDP growth is gaining steam

An archive photo

MINSK, 18 October (BelTA) – Belarus’ GDP growth has not only recovered, but is picking up steam, Deputy Economy Minister Andrei Kartun told reporters commenting on the country’s economic performance in January - September 2023, BelTA reports.

Decree No. 411 signed by the head of state on 28 November 2022 set out key parameters of the socio-economic development forecast for 2023. In particular, gross domestic product is projected to grow by 3.8% this year.

Positive trends prevail in the Belarusian economy, Andrei Kartun noted. “The GDP growth has bounced back to a good pace. In January-August 2023, it expanded by 3.5%, up by 0.4 percentage points year-on-year,” he said. “We have already reached the world average growth rate,” he continued.

The deputy minister named trade, industry and construction the main drivers of growth. These sectors are doing increasingly better than before. “Agriculture has recovered almost completely (99.8%), as the livestock sector managed to make up for the shortage in crop output,” the deputy minister added.

Andrei Kartun added that Belarus remains one of the leaders in the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) in terms of industrial output growth. "A great contributor is the mechanical engineering industry. It has posted the five-year highest production volumes for harvesters, certain types of household appliances, etc. The car production sector is recovering. In January-September, it rolled out about 49,000 cars, which was almost four times more than in the same period of last year. The number of TV sets produced during this period was 2.2 times higher as against January-September 2022. We have reduced stocks of finished products by almost Br1 billion," the deputy minister said.

Belarus has been doing well on foreign markets. "We are actively selling. This year the export is record high. This trend continues. In January-August of this year, the exports of goods and services soared by 5.2% and exceeded $30 billion. Merchandise export surged by more than 8% in January-August,” Andrei Kartun said. “Deliveries to Asian countries increased by 1.6 times. Exports to other continents are on the rise too. Diversification continues. It helps us to compensate for external shocks and make up for the lost markets."

Domestic demand props up the country's economy this year due to the dynamic recovery of investment and consumer activity. "In January-September, capital investments rose by almost 12%," the deputy minister said.

Retail buoyed up by almost 7% in January-September. "We see that it will keep growing until the end of the year. This is thanks to the growth in real household incomes (more than 5%) and record low inflation in January-August," Andrei Kartun said.

Speaking about the inflation, the deputy minister said that all the prerequisites are in place to keep it within 5-6%, which is lower than the projected 7-8%.



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