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List of socially important goods in Belarus to expand in 2021
MINSK, 3 November (BelTA) - The list of socially important goods in Belarus will expand in 2021, Belarus’ Prime Minister Roman Golovchenko said in an interview to Belarus 1 TV channel, BelTA has learned.
“Food price inflation is about 2.4-2.5%. Prices for some products rise more quickly, but for most products prices either stay intact or even go down. We keep the list of socially important goods under strict control. We plan to expand it next year. We will do it on a market basis, following the course set by the president. Prices for staple food products that should be available for the overwhelming majority of the population should not rise sharply, no matter what happens,” Roman Golovchenko said.
Speaking about the calls not to buy Belarusian products, the prime minister said that “it is difficult to comment on obvious nonsense”. He added that such calls are aimed at causing economic damage to the country. This hysteria began long before the presidential election. The calls to withdraw money from bank deposits, buy foreign currency, boycott Belarusian goods are not random things but elements of a well-coordinated campaign, Roman Golovchenko said.
According to him, thanks to a good teamwork of the government and the National Bank these attempts failed. “I am sure that we were forced or pushed to apply these unpopular measures. The state system, however, is strong enough to survive such peaks. We can see now that in comparison with August the volume of currency purchase by the population has decreased by 10 times. I hope that common sense will prevail and the situation in the financial market will finally stabilize,” he said.
The PM also talked about the operation of enterprises amid the pandemic. the prime minister said that the average salary is close to Br1,300, the salary of public sector employees is almost 80% of the average salary in the country, and the average pension approaches Br500.
Moreover, warehouse stocks are reducing. “Unfortunately, we can see that the second wave is going through Europe and the pandemic is leaving an impact on business activity. There is a very serious consumption crisis in the world now: sales are small, investment is limited, and the most of our exports are investment goods,” he said.
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